Life Is Strange Eternity War Episode 1 Genesis
by WickDaLine
Summary: [Sequel to After the Storm] Life does not get any less stranger for Max. After three years of abandoning a dangerous underworld she tried to leave behind, her long lost cousin Alex returns to help her end a war to end all wars. Max must decide what she is willing to sacrifice to save the ones she loves. David joins the Chrysalis army and enters a war worse than his last.
1. No Sacrifice

**Note: And so this is how it begins folks. From the hard work accomplished from Dontnod Entertainment themselves that all began in a little town known as Arcadia Bay, to the inspired prequel achieved by Deck Nine, to my deepest ambition I've maintained in my fan fictional arts of writing up until now, I bring you the Mockingjay/Return of the Jedi in a young adult saga known as Life is Strange. From the cliffhanger of After the Storm that set up the final chapter of Max Caulfield herself!**

 **I stand before you all, in this hour of triumph, after gradually completing the Catching Fire/The Empire Strikes Back of Life is Strange, I bring to all my fellow readers and Life is Strange fan around the globe new and old, Life is Strange: Eternity War. In this grand finale of Max's tale, Max will endure her biggest and most breathtaking adventure yet. In a story of love and loss, change and hope, sacrifice and struggle, brotherhood and sisterhood, chaos and despair, affection and power, tragedy and limits, and letting go and holding on, let us never forget how far I've come to take on this task into my own hands. Let us never forget how passionate we are of the characters we've embraced our hearts to in Arcadia Bay and beyond. And let us never forget why we love life is strange until the end of time. Never, ever, and forever. For the time has come for Max Caulfield to come back with a bang!**

 **Enjoy this first episode ladies and gents! Rhymes with Beethoven! Stay Golden!**

 _"Why is all around us here as if some lesser god had made the world, but had not force to shape it as he would. Till the High God behold it from beyond and enter it. And make it beautiful?"_

 _\- Arthur, in 'The Passing of Arthur' by Alfred, Lord Tennyson_

Chapter 1 No Sacrifice

Arthur \- Age 37 (POV)

Merlin \- Age 57

July 25th, 487 AD

7:37 AM

The Dark Battle

Meridian Prime

 **Human - Rag'n'bone Man**

The dark times had fallen. A battle had spawned across the island of Meridian Prime. Knights and Vikings brawling in the battlefield. A fight between the Saint Loomis order of England led by I, King Arthur, and the Saxons of Germany. Soldiers and warriors clashing for their lives with swords, shields, and bows with arrows. Catapults launching fireballs across the battleground blowing fighters away like popcorn. The battle was bloody as it was vigorous.

In the battle on Meridian Prime, soldiers were gutted by the steel of swords. Soldiers on horsebacks were dismounted from their own horses by the led of arrows. Horses pranced around the battleground fleeing and naying in distress. Massive flaming projectiles from the catapults collided into the dirt searing everything into rubble and devastating everyone into scorched corpses. Arrows raining down in the air faster than a flock of birds and plummeting on the dirt and slaughtering assailants. Saxons howling on their side in the battlefield like a pack of ferocious wolves. Holding sickles, clubs, axes, hatchets, and mallets in their hands. Their anthem of war.

Though the Saint Loomis army was losing the battle, I and Sir Lancelot rode on their horsed coming to the rescue with the rest of the Loomis leaders and enforcers from the round table. Overlooking the battle from their horsebacks. Watching our men get butchered by the Saxons. They all sat on their horse saddles. Some holding Loomis flags and banners while observing the bloody battlefront. They couldn't stand to see their army loose to the Saxons. They did not have the numbers for reinforcements and my compatriots could wait no longer for my magician Merlin to bring whatever special forces he was to summon for the fight.

"Where in hell is your so-called, magician?" Lancelot asked.

"He will be here, Lancelot," I assured to my fellow knight. "He swore it."

The Saxons appeared to be doubling their numbers as the enemy reinforced themselves from the woods outside the battlefield. Adding more pressure onto the Loomis army.

"They're preparing for a second wave," said Lancelot.

When the Saxon enforcements came marching in, archers lit their arrows with fire to fire another round in unison. Then the tribal Vikings got their range on and one of them roared 'Charge!' to fight their next wave. Then the Saxon warrior charged into a stampede to start clashing against Loomis knights and soldiers. Then Loomis reinforcements on horses came charging down on their horse back to begin their next attack run on the Saxon and counter their second wave.

One of my knights commander my reinforcements named Tristan, led the next wave of my men attacking.

"This...this is what the end looks like," said Tristan on his horseback.

As soon as Tristan's enforcements charged against the opposing force, the Saxon archers fired the flaming arrows in the air to cut down their enemy. The enemy of the enemy began clashing against their will struggling to butcher their opponents before they got butchered themselves. Regardless who was killed in battle first, fireballs from the catapults continued to arc over the battleground to plummet onto to dirt to disembowel more fighters off their horses or off their feet.

My knights and I continued watching their get bested by the Saxons. Running out of hope for winning the fight.

"You're so called magician, Merlin, cannot help us," said Percival next to Lancelot and I. "We're outnumbered one hundred to one. How are we gonna get out of this?"

"He promised us a weapon," said Arthur. "One of great power."

"Arthur, you are my King," said Gawain, another knight of mine. "I will lay down my life for you, but this - Merlin, is no wizard."

"He's a worthless drunkard," said the other knight.

Merlin

July 25th, 487 AD

7:42 AM

Meridian Orchard

Meridian Prime

I rode on my horse across an orchard to find place withholding the weapon of great power. A weapon known as the Eternity Gauntlet. In order to find the Eternity Gauntlet, I would need to enter the cavern that would take me to the underground lost city of Providence. Where I would find the Ark of Genesis holding the Eternity Gauntlet for me to use to help win the war for my King Arthur against the Saxons.

I halted my horse for one moment as it jerk upward and nayed for a second. I felt like I need another swig of my whiskey. Feeling exhausted after thirty miles of galloping by horse.

"Whoa," I say stopping my horse. "Oh god, I'm sozzled. One last nip."

I take my bottle of whiskey and chug a sip down my throat until I've quenched my thirst. A raven had flown above me where I stopped. It was the raven I was told to follow. The spirit raven the Sisters of Fate told me to follow to reach Mount Genesis. I then signal my horse to keep riding northward.

I ride northbound across the Meridian Plains and up towards Mount Genesis. Proceeding where the raven had flown. Where I'd find the secret passage to Providence and find the Ark of Genesis to claim the Eternity Gauntlet. Magic does exist. It had been found long ago. Inside the lost city of Providence. Where I would be entering to complete my journey.

Once I have reached my destination up on Mount Genesis, I had seen the raven coming to a stop resting by a mystic door and then flew away. This was indeed the place. I dismount from my horse to gain entry. I take my magic staff from my sheath to access the door to the hidden passage to High Providence. The door opens with ease when I use the magic from my staff to unlock it. Then I proceed into the dark passage to the lost underground city. I step onto a panel inside the dark cavern that would teleport me to the Providence domain. And so it does.

When I teleport into the buried city, I'm taken directly to the Ark that's central to the domain. Where I'm to meet Chronos the god of time for my bargain I made with him to help me complete my task for Arthur. Just as the Sisters of Fate had guided me to.

"Hello!" I holler in the darkness of the Ark. "Hello! It is I! Conquer of spirits! Master of the dark arts! Is anyone there?!"

I take another swig of my whiskey waiting for Chronos to come for our meeting. But no one arrived.

"It is I, Merlin," I say. "The wizard? Remember me?"

Suddenly, an immobilization field of some kind raised me off my feet and restrained me limb from limb. I could barely move and inch of myself in the restraining field. Then he came. Chronos had arrived and approached me where I had been caught in his trap.

"The wizard of King Arthur dares to disturb my ark and domain?!" Chronos grunted.

"Wait! No! I kept your secret!" I shouted. "I did! Just as I promised! I told no one of your existence! No one! But you have to understand. The sisters of fate guided me here promising me a fair bargain. We Britains in the order of Saint Loomis are in a desperate fight. End of time sort of thing. I mean it. It's happening up there now as we speak - it's awful. People just clashing in a big bloody battle. I hate to ask, but I need your help."

"And what does a wizard and the Britains of Saint Loomis benefit from my aid? The Sisters of Fate could not have just told anyone about any interest of mine for any impending inquiry. They clearly would've known about a vagrant charlatan who lives a life of fraud."

* * *

"There are no spells," said Percival on his horseback. "There is no magic. We retreat. Live to fight another day."

"No!" Arthur persisted. "Without sacrifice, there can be no victory."

Arthur got off his horse, unsheathed his sword, and forked it into the ground. It was no ordinary sword. It was his trademark Excalibur Sword. Marking it as his token of leadership.

"This is madness!" Percival bickered.

"He will be here!" Arthur yelled.

* * *

"Alright, I am what they say." I admit. "I'm a lair. I'm a charlatan. I've deceived my whole life - but if I could, for one moment change this world for the better, I would give up everything. Everything! I would give up drink, money, whim - drink and money! Look, good men will die without your help. Women and children. I know your people were destroyed. I'm sorry. But please, don't let ours die too. I beg of you."

"If you wish to atone your fraudulence by surrendering your ego," said Chronos. "The Mantle of Possibility is yours. I will give you the eternity gauntlet. The Chrono Dragon is yours to command."

I hear the shriek and roar of a flying beast above me. It his none other than the Chrono Dragon itself ready for me to command as granted by Chronos himself. I am released from the retraining field and the Eternity Gauntlet is latched onto my hand. Illuminating into a spark of eternal energy.

"Yes," I said. "That would be just the thing."

"Protect this gauntlet," said Chronos. "One day, a great evil will come for it."

I am teleported back to the surface of Mount Genesis. Where the Chrono Dragon flies around in a circle. I ride my horse back to the Meridian Plains where I the dragon flies besides me. As long as the Eternity Gauntlet is in my hands, the dragon is under my power to command whatever I wish. Which is now to help Arthur and Saint Loomis win the Eternity War.

I stop my horse besides a cliff that overviews the battlefield. I guide the dragon towards the direction of the fighting to extinguish the Saxons so Saint Loomis would win.

"Oh...yes!" I chant.

Arthur

July 25th, 487 AD

8:25 AM

The Dark Battle

Meridian Prime

Archers of the Saxons lit up more arrows and shot down more of my men. Tribal Vikings kept mowing down my troops to the ground like pigs. Wherever my wizard Merlin had gone there was no more time to loose as there were no more men left to loose. Every minute Merlin stalls my army is every life taken by the Saxons. Not anymore.

I soon realize my talisman on my body armor and Excalibur Sword illuminate like a lantern. I equip my sword knowing Merlin's reinforcement has arrived. And it had with the Chrono Dragon flying into the battlefield. Prepared to strike a brutal death from above for the Saxons. I raise my sword in the air to rally my knights and soldiers.

"Charge!" I bark.

The Chrono Dragon begins shooting flame from it's mouth incinerating every last Saxon in the skirmish. Destroying the catapults that had devastated most of my army and burning every last Saxon alive into a baking crisp. The dragon then lands on the ground to swipe down some tribal warriors with it's bare wings and roaring into an extraordinarily loud echo of monstrosity. My fellow knights including Lancelot charge through the Saxons to help my troop kill as many as possible as well.

Every Saxon we slay with our swords falls to the ground and is made a corpse. My fellow knights Lancelot, Percival, Gawain, and Tristan fight by side in the middle of the onslaught. With the help of the Chrono Dragon igniting it's incinerating breath to do the heaviest damage to the Saxons. And just when we thought we had won the battle and cleansed half the Saxons while the other half retreated, this is what occurs next.

Clouds of lightning darken the sky. Then a mysterious armored figure is manifested from a hole in the clouds as lightning sparks from it. This figure drops down thousand of feet up in the air and plummets to the ground with a heavy tremor caused from it's landing. This figure was no random one. This figure was a celestial being wearing heavy Greek armor and a horned helmet. This figure was Ares the god of war.

"Impossible," I said.

"Where I stand, anything is possible," said Ares.

The war god himself released a devastating force pushing Arthur and the other knights into thriving blow. While my fellow knights were knocked unconscious, I got up on my knees and belly crawled my way to my Excalibur Sword. Not before Ares could reach it first and take it for himself. Once he had my sword in his hands, he was somehow now in control of the Chrono Dragon. That now leaped over behind him. Signify it's transferred allegiance to Ares. But that wasn't all.

Every corpse on the ground, both Loomis and Saxon, rose back on their feet. Transformed into metamorphic beast. Zombie like creatures for Ares to forge his own army of undead soldier to fight at his side. The army he had built around him soon became a horde. The horde of the undead crowded behind him and his newly pledged Chrono Dragon that growled and roared before my very eyes. Ones that I could not believe to be true. Just when I was about to chant myself for winning, I still had lost.

"Now, where is the Eternity Gauntlet?" Ares interrogated as I crawled away from him.

"Wherever it is, you won't find it here," I answer. "Turn back."

"Your answer is a fib to be corrected. It is your wizard who posses it if that is correct, isn't it?"

"Just finish it, Ares! You've won. You have beaten us."

"For someone known as the greatest king and warrior of the Britains and Saint Loomis, your far too tempted to surrender your life so easily. You have said so yourself. No sacrifice, no victory. Allow me to repay the favor!"

With his final word said, Ares raises the Excalibur sword. Preparing to strike me down as the roar of the dragon is heard within the war god swinging the sword to my marrow. Executing his last blow to my body and winning the dark battle. As well as the Eternity War.

 **Note: For those confounded as to what has happened in this prologue, it his set during the Arthurian era where in this universe, King Arthur is the first to lead the order of Saint Loomis with the knights of the round table. Saint Loomis was a fictional cult I created that I referenced in After the Storm. I have tethered this historical event to the Life is Strange verse not only to give this story more realism and also set up the premise and tension for this story. Bare with me, the following chapter is where the real excitement begins. Thank you and enjoy the rest of this premiere episode as it updates!**

 **P.S. In the following chapter, I will unveil my interpretation as to why Max neglected herself from Chloe after her move to Seattle. As to who was the reason Max was distracted from the girl she abandoned on the bay. Also, the raven Merlin the Wizard had followed is the same raven as seen in Before the Storm. That's all.**


	2. From Humble Beginnings

Chapter 2 From Humble Beginnings

Max \- Age 12 (POV)

Alex \- Age 16

September 19th, 2008

8:07 PM

Seattle, Washington

Caulfield Residence

 **1,521 years later...**

"Max?" My mother says to me.

I sit on my bed and glance at my mom for a split second before looking away. She stood there in front of me in my bedroom of our new home we had just moved into two months ago after our departure from Arcadia Bay. The first few weeks of eighth grade at my new middle school had been the pleasant ones.

Today I hit another girl at school that caused a fight between us over my journal and how she made fun of me and Chloe as she read it and it did not end well. I was sent straight to the principal's office with my parents afterwards. Then immediately given a week's detention for what I did to the girl I assaulted.

"Max," said Mom. Holding my chin up so I could look at her in the eye. Then I shake my off her hand to ignore her. My mother sighed.

"What are we going to do with you?" She asked. "You must be tired of these lectures and you know your father and I are tired of giving them. You've only been in school for two weeks and you're already causing trouble. And now you have to stay grounded here with us all weekend instead of going to the festival with your cousin Alex and Uncle Bryan for your birthday?"

"I don't care," I said.

"Yes, that is the crux of the problem."

"I don't see why I'm the only one getting punished-"

"Because you started the fight."

"She wouldn't give me back my journal."

"I told you to leave your journal at home. You only have yourself to blame."

"Doesn't give her the right to just snatch it from me."

"Does that give you the right to start throwing punches?!"

I then emotionally think about all the things the girl said to me that insulted both my friendship with Chloe and the loss of her father who had dies just five months earlier.

"It wasn't just about the journal," I said.

"What was it then?" Mom asked.

I wanted to talk about what the girl said to me, but I knew I would break down if I did.

"Nothing," I say. "I'll save it for the morning."

My mother is gives herself a disappointed look on her face and decides to walk out the room. She says her last sentence before walking out the door.

"No matter what we try," she began. "You seem insistent on going down the same sad road as your cousin. What a waste."

Then my mom steps out of the room and shuts the door behind. Leaving me by myself. I want to cry about all the things the girl said to me about Chloe and I that prompted me to assault her. She had no right say what she said. None. She had no idea how it felt for me to leave her alone with her mother Joyce after the great tragedy of her father William. Perhaps I made her understand by striking her twice as hard. I was so furious at her, I wanted to destroy her.

Just when I'm about to drop a tear, I see a light ray beaming on the wall and through the window. I hold my tear and turn my head towards my window to see a small white beacon shine from across the street of my neighborhood. It was my cousin standing on the sidewalk across the road flickering her flashlight on and off to signal me. I'm delighted with a smile.

"Alex!" I hiss.

I immediately get off my bed and open my window.

"I see ya," I say.

I mantle over my window hole and stand on the roof of my house gently. Then close my window behind me.

"Up and around I go," I said.

Alex stops flicker her light as she sees me sneak out through my own window. I carefully slide over the roof as I then fall off and land on my feet. Almost breaking a leg as I land on the grass of my front yard. All I needed to do now was get to Alex and make sure my parents don't see me sneaking out in the middle of the night. That's when I overheard my parents talking inside by the living room window.

I can see their shadows through the blinds as they appear to be both heading back upstairs to sleep while they discuss about what I did today. I duck for cover and hide behind the bushes in the front yard so they don't see me walking out.

"Uh-oh," I say.

 _"Isn't our job to help our own daughter in situations like this?"_ Dad asked.

 _"In the meantime, we're neglecting upon what we came here for all the way from Arcadia Bay,"_ said Mom.

My Dad sighs.

 _"What do you want me to do?"_ He asked.

 _"You know my opinion,"_ said Mom.

 _"Well...I'm not ready to give up on her yet."_

 _"You can't keep avoiding it."_

My Dad sighs again.

 _"Look, I'll...talk to her in the morning. Okay?"_

Mom sighs.

 _"Good night, Ryan."_

 _"Good night, Vanessa."_

When their conversation ends, I know they're going upstairs to bed. That's my cue to get out of here and hope they don't find out I snuck out. Not yet. I hop over the fence of our front yard and onto the sidewalk. I walk across the street to the other side of the block and loose sight of Alex. I do see her backpack flashlight lying on the ground with the light on though. Where could she be?

Suddenly, someone jumps me from behind a snatches me. Carrying me around like an animal. It was Alex.

"Ooh, you gotta learn to watch your back!" She shouts.

We have a laugh. Then she puts me down.

"Alright, you got me," I said.

"Hey, it's good to see you, little cousin. Wha-?"

Alex notices the bruise on my check from when I fought the girl at school.

"What is that?" She asks, pointing out my purple sting. "What the hell happened to you? Get into a fight with a guerrilla or something?"

"It's nothing," I say.

"Nothing isn't gonna cut it, buttercup. You get in trouble or something?"

I sigh.

"She was talking shit about Chloe and I," I said.

"So?" Alex frowned.

"So, she said that Mom and Dad dumped me here cause I'm worthless. And Chloe's dad is in hell because-"

"Max, Max, c'mon. They're just saying that because it gets to you. You just gotta learn to laugh it off."

"Laugh it off?! When was the last time someone told you to laugh off your dad getting killed by a drunk driver, huh?! Chloe was severely crying her eyes out next to her dad's casket! And-"

"Okay, okay! Let me rephrase! First off, I heard about the accident with Chloe's dad and I'm sorry about what happened. My condolences. Second off, you just gotta learn to let it go. Sound better?"

"Tell that to the one who lost her father. And now just to add more insult to the injury, she can't be with her best friend anymore either. You don't just let go of that."

"You know what they say. Do as I say, not as I do. Here, you'll catch cold."

Alex removed her blue jacket she wears in the fall and lends it to me for myself to wear during the autumn cold. I turn around for a second so she could put it on for me.

"So...what are you doing here like this anyway?" I ask getting dressed in Alex's denim jacket. "Just so you know, I'm grounded for the weekend and I'm gonna get myself into more trouble if my parents find you with me like this."

"Well I got something for ya," she answers, when I completely dressed in her coat. "And it couldn't wait 'til Christmas."

"What?"

"It's outside."

Alex reached for her backpack and put it on around her shoulders to head out with me.

"Is there a part of me getting into more trouble you didn't understand?" I ask her.

"Well, this is an exception," said Alex.

"Uh-huh."

"Let's cut through the yards. I know a short cut way around."

"We're breaking into people's yards now?"

"I said cutting through. Not breaking in. Big difference. Let's go."

The two of us climb over a chain linked fence and Alex helps me over before she mantles over. I take her hand so she could help me over.

"Hey, nice jump," I say.

"C'mon, gimme me your hand," says Alex.

The two of us mantle over and drop down on feet into grass as quiet as possible no one would hear us and wake the neighbors.

"Sheesh, you're light," said Alex. "Is Auntie V feeding you enough?"

We run across the yard ninja style to take whatever shortcut Alex was taking me through. Hopefully not more trouble.

"Yo, weren't we supposed to go to the autumn festival tomorrow?" Alex asked.

"Yes, but I'm grounded from that, remember?"

"Yeesh. That's harsh dude. No festival for you, huh? Ouch. Guess my dad and I will be the only ones going then."

Yard after yard and fence after fence, we run through grass grown next to patios, swing sets, swimming pools, you name 'em. The fences we hopped across were scaled down lower than our first one we mantled over. It was old neighborhood. Guess that's a good thing for us sneaking out after eight.

"How's Uncle Ryan doing?" Alex asked.

"He's doing alright," I said. "They were able to except him into his decent job he found here and took it. You should come and say hi."

"Nah...I don't need the etiquette."

"So what you've been up to?"

"Working mostly."

"You still dating that boy?"

"Who? Christian? Eh...on again, off again. Currently off again."

We both reach a really high wooden fence at the end of the block. Not sure how we'd both get up there, but the adventurous one named Alex brought me.

"Okay, Max. Up over there and we've made it."

"So...how do we get up there?"

"Easy. I'll give you a boost. C'mon, I gotcha."

Well shit, Max. Heights aren't necessary my phobia, but cuts and bruises sure as hell are. Mom isn't often the person to let that fly. That's for damn straight. Alex bends down and cups her arms for me leap on. I take one foot up over her hands and the foot out.

"No guts...no glory..." she grunts lifting me over.

I mantle my body over the fence and safely drop down to me feet on a dirt road at the end of the block. Alex was tall enough to reach the top of the fence and mantle over herself. Then she drops in and join me on the dirt path we've landed on. Wherever Alex was taking me, it had better have been worth getting into more trouble for. Otherwise, my parents would extend my grounding for another week or two.

"Just like that," says Alex. "We're out."

"Alright," I say.

Alex walk me over to her new motorbike parked in the dirt alley next to a dumpster. She is sixteen and old enough to drive and must have her license. A bike was her first set of wheels.

"Check it out, huh?" Alex said introducing her new motor vehicle.

"Wowser, you got the two-fifty?" I ask her.

"Two fifty? What are you talking about? No, this is the five-hundred CC twin."

"No way."

"Yes way."

"Where'd you lift it from?"

"Whoa! That's a low blow. But hey, I'll have you know that I am a...changed woman. Bought this with hard-earned cash. Here, c'mon, take a seat."

Before I took the seat to ride with Alex, I still concern myself with what we're up to and give my cousin a glaring frown.

"What?" She asks.

"The only time you pull a stunt like this," I begin. "Is when you're trying to make up for something."

"You are too smart for your own good, you know that? Alright, I got this job. Pays well. Really well, but, uh, I gotta leave town for a little bit."

"What's a little bit?"

"Like a...a year. At the most, and then I'll be back before you even know it, alright?"

"You're bailing on me."

"Ah, c'mon. Don't be so dramatic."

"What? So it wasn't bad enough I had to leave Chloe behind without a father and a best friend in her life? How could you do this to me, Alex?"

"Hey wait, I'm doing this for you. The money I make is for the both of us. And then in a couple of years when your old enough to move out-"

"A couple of years?! Take me with you."

"I - I can barely support myself. Besides, you can't just leave here when you still have parents to raise you in their own house."

"And you can't just leave here when Uncle Bryan is still raising you under his roof too."

"He's coming with me."

"Look, maybe when I'm old enough to have my own roof, I'll pitch in. Okay?"

"I know it sucks to leave Chloe behind like that."

"You have no idea."

"Yeah, it doesn't matter. But what matters is it's all that you've got to live with for now. Alright? You just gotta trust me on that one."

"It's not fair."

"Hey, nothing about our lives has been fair, but we've made it work. Right?"

"Sure."

"Well, you know, the bike wasn't the only surprise. And I guess I'm gonna have to ruin the next one."

"What?"

"I found Uncle Bryan's stuff. Everything my dad sold. I tracked down the buyer."

"If your saying this just to make me feel better-"

"No, I swear to dog."

"Where?"

"Eh...on the other side of town. Whaddaya say we go and get it back?"

"You mean steal it?"

"Ah, it's not stealing if it was ours to begin with."

"I'm pretty sure the cops aren't gonna see it that way."

"Well then let's not get caught."

I hope onto Alex's new bike as she takes peddles and steerer. She turns her head back at me before starting the engine with a confident smirk.

"You ready for this?" Alex asks.

"Hell yeah," I reply with an endearing smile.

 **Note: And so our adventure begins with a new dynamic duo for Max and her cousin Alex from humble beginnings before her adventures with Chloe and her return to the bay. Prepare yourselves for the beginning of a Life is Strange adventure like never before! So sit tight, enjoy the ride and stay tuned and golden!**


	3. A Day In the Life Of

Chapter 3 A Day In the Life Of

Max \- Age 17 (POV)

Alex \- Age 20

November 8th, 2012

12:09 PM

Seattle, Washington

Cleveland High School

 **4 years later...**

 **11 months before the storm...**

I smile warmly in the crowd of students surrounding me. I'm then hit in the face by a blonde boy taller than me knocking down on a table in the cafeteria outdoors on campus. I fumble down to my knee as I hang onto the table with my arms. Everyone in the cafeteria is clamoring and chanting at me and the school bully with the yellow hair. This bully was named Gus.

Gus was a boy a year older and a few inches taller than me. He had blonde hair with pierced ears and a tattoo on his arm. Gus laughed gave me a spiteful grin and was shaking his fist after taking a hit from him. The crowd was encouraging the bully to beat me like a puppy.

"Oh, I'm sorry, Max Hippy," said Gus. "Did I hurt you? Are you about to cry?"

Gus chuckled and turned to the crowd.

"You hear that everyone!" Gus shouted. "Maxter the Hipster is about cry like a baby! You all ready for this?!"

I get up off the table I fumbled on to stand up to Gus the Puss as I'd like to call him when I kick ass his ass.

"You're gonna have to do better than that, Gus," I say.

"You got big balls, Caulfield," said Gus. "But I've got bigger balls."

"Let's go."

I swing my fist at Gus only for him to counter my punch by seizing it tightly his bare hand. Then squeezing my fist until it hurts like hell enough for me to wail. And then he twist my wrist his muscular arm and hand to give me more pain. The muscular boy punches me in the stomach and throws another punch across my face causing me to falter to my knees and my hands to help me break my fall. Nice going, Caulfield. You're really outdoing yourself by pretending to be a bad-ass only to get humiliated by Gus in front of the whole school. I can feel the sting in my stomach from the punch I took.

And then Gus pick my up off the ground, holds me by my arms, and whispers in my hear.

"Let's see how you handle this, hippy," he whispered.

The bad boy himself hulls me over to another lunch table and tosses me onto the table as I fumble to the concrete floor again. Then kicks me in the stomach harder than a sledgehammer hitting a nail. I falter to the floor again as I whimper in pain. The clamoring crowd of students breeds more and more humility upon myself. Why do I even bother standing up against this cluster-fuck of a school bully?

"Look at the hipster everyone!" Gus gloated. "Max the whimpster curling like a baby! I think it's time for her pacifier!"

Gus drags me on the floor with his shirt like a stuffed doll and drops me on the floor. Then he pins me to the ground and throws a punch at my face. And then another and another. And finally, a hero arrives to save me from my despair.

"Yo, Gus!" A voice called from the crowd. "Pick on someone your own size, cabron!"

It was my close friend at Cleveland, Fernando Rojas. Dropping to save his damsel in distress by kicking Gus in the rib and away from me.

"Don't mess with my puta, amigo!" Fernando yelled.

Gus got off the ground and stepped away from me to start picking of fight with someone more of his size than mine. Fernando always hated bullies, but I always loved his guts standing up to one.

"You think you're so tough, Fernando, huh?" Gus questioned. "Easy for you to take me on since that's what you think."

"Easy for you to make it such a fair fight for yo ass since Senorita Caulfield is so small," said Fernando.

"Bring it, Amigo!"

"You first!"

Gus takes his first strike at Fernando and his strike is countered by his opponent who then twist his hand around and seizes him by the arm. Then Gus hits Fernando on the side with elbow to break free. The fight ensues between the two. I never really seen any real action from Fernando in a one to one fight with someone. Especially on school grounds with the whole school watching and chanting for him.

I could see Fernando get pinned to the ground by Gus as I did. Gus stabs his fist against Fernando's face a few times before Fernando could grasp his fist countering his next strike and then hitting him across the face with his own fist. Pinning Gus against the ground and throwing punches of his own to Gus's face. Until school security entered the scene and a guard gripped Fernando's arm before his last strike.

"This fight is over!" The guard yelled.

More guards came in to take the two fighters away, retrain them by the arms, and escort them to the Principal's office. One guard helped on my feet to take me to the nurse's office.

"Hey, we weren't fighting," fibbed Fernando, restrained by the guard holding him. "Huh? Right, little guy?"

"This isn't over, Fernando!" Gus hollered, spitting his saliva over to Fernando while restrained by the guards.

"Hey give me a call when your tall enough to ride the rides!" Fernando hollered back.

"You hear that, Fernan! I will end your ass real soon!"

"To the office, both of you!" The guard shouted. "Now!"

"I'll be coming for your ass I'm gonna fuck you up till your black and blue!" Gus blustered.

The guards took them away back inside the main building to the principals office. The guard helping on my feet escorts me to the nurse.

"You hurt?" The guard asks.

"Undoubtedly," I say.

* * *

I sit in the nurses office and miss class between periods so the nurse would stitch me up in the office. Gus really went full alpha on me. Leaving me with cuts on the forehead and lip and a bruise beside the eye. The nurse finished patching my face with stitches and band aid strips from her first aid kit. Gus and Fernando were both sent to the Principal's office with their parents' arrival. Might have heard Gus was getting expelled for his assault on me outside and Fernando was being suspended for his interception.

"You know you're the third person to come into this room after a beating," the nurse said. "I don't know what it is about the bullying here in this school, but it needs to stop getting physical extremely."

"People get bullied here everyday, Nurse," I say. "A few more hits from that maniac, Gus, and he would've killed me if not for Fernando."

As soon as the nurse finished padding my face with her nursing pad, Mom and Dad had arrived and walked inside. Relieved to see me okay. Grieved to see me brutally picked on by psycho Johnny Bravo.

"Max!" Mom cried and hugged me. "Oh, lord heavens your okay! What on earth did that kid do to you?!"

"Kicked my ass in front of the whole school his what that psycho did to me," I answer. "Over a lunch tray he knocked all over someone's shirt. The dumb-ass I was, I tried standing up to me and failed utterly."

"Language," said Dad. "Your still in school. Looks to me this is the complete opposite of standing up. Why did you let that boy beat you to a pulp? How did you let him beat you like this?"

"Like I said, I was only trying to stand up for someone getting picked on and this ended up happing. You have no idea, Dad. Nor do you, Mom. You do not want to stand up to someone like Gus unless you have the balls like Fernando did. I'm glad that psychopath is getting expelled."

Then a surprise visitor walked through the door of the nurse's room and it was my older cousin Alex who had entered the premises. Love it how my cousin always drops in uninvited.

"May I come in?" She asked.

"Alex? What are you doing here?" Dad asked. "Shouldn't you be our working with Bryan?"

"Dad gave me the day off. I'm just here checking on my little cousin. How is she? Head some crazy shit happened to her in the cafeteria today."

"Oh, I'm fine Alex, really," I said. "As long as they give Gus a boot in the ass out of school, I'll be just fine."

"Jesus, Max. You look like crap. That's your definition of fine?"

"Ha, ha. Not cute."

"If you say so."

A woman opened the nurse's door to peek inside. It was my high school principal of Cleveland.

"Oh, Mr. and Mrs. Caulfield," she said. "Glad your here. May I borrow these two young ladies into my office for a little chat? They're not in trouble. Just want a word."

"Sure," said Dad. "But why do you need my niece? She graduated."

"I just want a word about what happened today and I'd like your niece to hear," the principal replied. "I'm making it urgent."

* * *

Alex and I followed the principal to her office for the talk. Fernando, Gus, and their parents all left the school after their punishment was given and it was just me, Alex, and the principal in the office talking. My principal's name was Joanna Prescott. Everyone calls her Principal Prescott. I secretly call her Joanna or Joan for short.

We sat on our chair in front of the Principal's desk as the Principal herself sat on her chair behind her desk. My cousin and I sat down tight and listen to what she had to say.

"First of all," she began. "I owe you my sincere apologies, Ms. Caulfield, for what that pathetic excuse of a student, Gus, had done to you. It was rash and naive. I'll be sure to make the same apology to your parents."

"Don't mention it, Ms. Prescott," I said. "I'm glad you expelled that psycho."

"Second of all, I spoke with Bryan Caulfield today about your secret. I want in."

"In?"

"Mr. Caulfield told me about this ancient legend you two know about. The one about the mystifying island of Meridian Prime. The one about the lost city of High Providence. The one about the machine that control and brings balance to time and continuum. The legend of the Ark of Genesis."

"So we've been told," said Alex. "What about it?"

"Let's just say, Alex, that your father and I have a history of finding the ark all our lives. However you two hope to find it with him, I want in."

"C'mon, Ms. Prescott," I said. "The deal was just to tell us what to find to get to it and that's it."

"Just? I'm sticking my neck out for you two."

"Yeah, Uncle Bryan promised you a lot of money for your trouble," I said.

"Yes, he did. But not nearly enough."

Principal Prescott pulled out the old letter she given by my uncle to read on her desk.

"You were told not to open that," I said.

"Yes," the Principal said. "I'm also told not to take bribes. A criminal offense to the faculty. But here we are."

"Alright, but just be careful with that," said Alex. "It's almost hundred years old."

Joanna put on her reading glasses and unfolded the ancient letter to start reading.

"I was a member of Professor Ezra Prescott's crew," she began reading. "You know who that is?"

"One of your ancestors?" I ask.

"My great grandfather who pulled off the biggest conquest in history," informed Joanna. "And got away with it. I looked him up."

"That's great, can we-"

"He was the man who believed he could help the British win against the Germans in the first world war by activating the Ark of Genesis himself and thwarting the event of the eternity war that once occurred centuries earlier during the dark ages of the Arthurian era."

"Yeah, I'm familiar with the story. Alex and Uncle Bryan told me a million times before. Can you get to the point?"

Joanna continues reading.

"I withhold the highest artifact that holds the key to controlling the Ark of Genesis that will grant the gift to anyone who does the Mantle of Possibility," she continued. "I hope someday you will find a day in the life of to find the Eon Codex, the key to balancing continuum with the ark itself, and discover the riches of paradise."

"So what do you want?" I question.

"The riches of paradise," she answers.

"Oh chr-, it's a metaphor," I ensure.

"No, no, no, no, no, no. You and your cousin did not pay to find a day in the life of in search of a metaphor. I want in."

"Alright," said Alex. "We'll tell you what. My dad might know where the Eon Codex is. If it's anywhere, we'll find it. Maybe Kristen might know where it is too. If such a codex even exist after thousands of years, you can take this up with my father."

"Then it's settled. You two are dismissed now. You find it and tell me where it is. By the Max, tell your parents on the way out I'd like to see them now. I hope you get well soon Okay?"

"As you wish, Principal Prescott," I reply. "Nice talking with you."

"And one more thing."

Before we get off our seat, we hear her out.

"Don't do anything rash. Or I'll have you both arrested for attempted bribery on a school principle. Am I clear?"

"Crystal," I reply.

 **Note: If you've started reading this story, you probably finished reading After the Storm episodes 1-6. There's a post credits scene I wrote at the end of the finale that features Joanna Prescott. And yes, she is in relation to the Prescotts from Arcadia Bay. She is also the younger sister of Sean Prescott, Sister-In-Law of Caroline Prescott, and Aunt to Nathan and Kristine Prescott in my fiction.**

 **Four years have past and in my fiction, you may understand why Max completely disconnected herself from Chloe. She became too pre-occupied in dreaming of an adventure with her cousin Alex to find the myth and legend of the Ark of Genesis. For a little backstory and some attributes from Alex, she has a thing for archeology. A superior ambition from her little cousin Max who we all know has a thing for photography. Alex gets her archeology from her dad Bryan who is also Max's uncle. Over the years, the Caulfield cousins wasted their time associating themselves with their two ambitions of photography and archeology. If you're all scratching your heads as to why Max didn't bring this up to Chloe in season one during that Monday they were back together again, that is something you'll know why later in this episode. Thank you.** :]


	4. The Arthurian Legend

Chapter 4 The Arthurian Legend

Max

September 8th, 2012

2:50 PM

Seattle, Washington

Cleveland High School

 **Time To Pretend - MGMT**

'I want a cut,' she says. 'I want in,' she says. Ha, I'll give you in alright, Ms. Prescott. I'll give you in.

As soon as school ended, I walk out of class and go to my locker to collect my things to take with me. I put on my headphones and listen to 'Time To Pretend' by MGMT. Then I walk down the hall crowded with other students to make way for the front exit to outside the front courtyard where every other student was walking out. And then I stand outside waiting for the bus at the bus stop with other students. I get on the bus, take my seat, and ride away.

It's been four years since William died. Four years since I left Chloe secluded from her soul mate. Four years since I ever set foot back in Arcadia Bay. And for what? To start a new life with my cousin Alexis who goes by Alex? (Just how my how name full is Maxine when I go by Max) Perhaps so. In Alex taking the burden of stepping into Chloe's shoes, we set an ambition together over the years since I've been gone from the bay to one day set sail to the mythical island of Meridian Prime in search of a legend known as the Ark of Genesis. In doing so, I started to ditch Chloe's calls, text, and even some of the letters and post cards she sent. Always felt like utter shit for that. Still do up to this day.

Amusing how Chloe and I used to have the same imagination ours when we were kids. Back when she starred as Chloe Bluebeard and I starred as Long Silver Max. Playing Argh-cadia Bay pirates together dreaming of setting sail for adventure. I still remember the carving on the log by the lighthouse before William passed. I still remember the saddest moment of my life watching Chloe and her Mom, Joyce, morn their beloved William as a pastor preached his death and his coffin descending dead in the dirt. A funeral I'll never forget.

And I still remember putting my hand on the car window to see Chloe's face one last time as she rolled a tear down her cheek and one rolled down mine as I let her go for my exodus. Only for Alex to emerge into my new life, my new beginning, and my new era in Seattle to make me happy just as Chloe had in Arcadia Bay.

The drove from 15th Avenue South where my school was addressed to South Orcas Street where my home was addressed. My school was fifteen blocks away from my house. It never took long for me to go back and forth. I always admire the view leaning against the window on the bus as I pass through houses and see buildings and skyscrapers from across my neighborhood of Beacon Hill. I can even see the Space Needle from my home. It was beautiful during the nighttime when it lit up like Christmas lights on a tree with all the other surrounding buildings. It's what I admired and endured best about Seattle. Even my dad took me up to the needle once and took a picture to remember. There were also times when he'd take my cousin and I too Century Link Field for a Seahawks game. Even had our own Super Bowl party watching the Seahawks at my house as well.

Alex shot me a text on my smart phone as I pulled it out to read it.

 **Alex: Yo Max! What do you say Kristen, Fernando, and I meet at your place to negotiate our deal between Dad and Principal Prescott? I think Kristen might have more on the ark u'll want to see.**

 **Max: My parents are coming home late. Drop by at 5-ish.**

 **Alex: Sounds good. SYL**

 **Max: U2**

The bus makes its stop at my block and I get off the bus before it leaves the bus stop. Then I walk down the side to my house as it leaves my block. Another day, another wowser. Got beaten up by psychotic Peeta Mellark, bribed a school principle, and now she wants in on the deal. What have you gotten yourself into Max? It's a good thing Alex graduated last year. Otherwise, we'd both be in deep shit. In fact, we're gonna find ourselves into deep shit regardless.

I remove my ear buds off my ears and walk through the front door I unlocked with a key Dad gave me. Then I walk upstairs to my room, put my backpack down, and collapse to my bed with a bruised face with a few cuts. I sigh in remoteness. Resting and relaxing from a long and hubris day. Waiting for my cousin to come home with my friends from school.

Besides from lying down on my bed doing nothing, I take a nice long glance at my Polaroid collection on the wall behind my bed set. All the good memories of Seattle with me on display. Shots of skyscrapers and other landscapes of Seattle. Even some of the Space Needle. The main attraction.

Then a look at some pictures of my family and I that we took in Seattle throughout the years. The picture of my Dad and I on the Space Needle, the picture of me at the Thunderbirds game, and the picture of Kristen, Fernando and I on the Fremont Troll under the freeway that Alex had taken of us. Wish we could've been more sober of that memory we had.

And then I stare at some photos of Alex and I in this great city. A picture of us at art museum that I was into, a picture of us at the natural history and culture museum Alex had been into, and so much more. Such as pictures of us holding our fist in the air on Beacon Hill where we could see our entire neighbor from up there, pictures of us making time with Fernando and Kristen at Northgate Mall, Cleveland, high school shindigs, you name it. Then there was the selfie of Alex and I from when we broke into the house full of trinkets and treasures that first year I moved here. Can't forget that night of our first break in.

And finally, I come across some pictures that involve Chloe and I. There was the one of the two of us with William at the park. Then there was the photo of Chloe and I during my tenth birthday, one with us playing sandcastle in the sand at Arcadia Shores, and the one Chloe and I would historically never forget about. The picture of us in pirate cosplay. Smiling like there was no tomorrow. The photo that made us icons. Her, Captain Chloe Bluebeard and I, First Mate Long Silver Max. The scourge of Arcadia Bay. What a ride.

That's when I realize the photo of Alex, Chloe, and I during our camping trip with my Dad, William, and Uncle Bryan. Wowser, that I was the only time my cousin had visited us in town that summer. Two years before William was killed in the accident. The only memory Alex has of seeing Chloe and her father together. The right memory at the right time. We had such an adventurous time together camping out in the Tillamook Woods. One the three of us could never forget.

I even recall William taking his last photo of Chloe and I that fateful morning after breakfast. His last day on Earth that Chloe and I would never forget such a tragic memory. Our best memory turned worst. From the second Joyce called her husband on the phone to pick her up from the grocery store to the moment William succumbed his last breath from the liability of a drunken diesel driver. When could've fulfilled his excuse to grab himself a latte instead. That was the day our lives changed forever. Hopefully now, William is watching his own daughter from the skies of heaven.

To add one more thing on the to-do list, I grab my smart phone and find Chloe on my contact list and scroll up and down her text box swarmed with unanswered text. Some of them recent, others that were ancient. Four years of Chloe texting me, or two years if you count the year I stopped answering her calls, and not one response for any. Wowser, Max, you're the worst friend ever when your best friend needs you the most. Never use your cousin as an excuse.

 _"Max, we're home!"_ My cousin's voice hollers from downstairs.

She really needs to get a grip at knocking or ringing the bell before entry.

"Coming!" I holler back.

Alex

September 8th, 2012

4:59 PM

Seattle, Washington

Caulfield Residence

I enter my little cousin's domain with Fernando and Kristen. Continuing my habit of never knocking our ringing the doorbell for entering. My baby cousin, Max, walks down the steps to join us in the dining room for our chat with her face grazed from the fight with Gus.

"Are your fingers too broken from ringing the doorbell, Alex?" Max asked.

"Nice to see you too, Max," I say. "Gotta say, Gus really did a number on you? Feeling any better?"

"Jesus, Max," said Kristen. "Your face is even worse than I thought."

"Thank you, Kristen," said Max. "I feel so much better now. No offense."

"Okay, let's make this quick and clean amigos," said Fernando. "I'm not supposed to be here. Principal Prescott suspended me for three weeks and my parents grounded me for the month. So let's get to it."

"Just another day at the office," said Max. "C'mon. Let's talk this through in the dining room."

"Hey, whoa, whoa, whoa," I say, stopping Max in her tracks. "You're not gonna keep me in suspense are you?"

Max sighed.

"You were right," she admitted.

I chuckle.

"No, we were right," I say. "Now we just gotta get Bryan and-"

"Ah, Bryan."

"Don't, don't start. Please?"

"Oh, c'mon. Like you said. We did this. You and me. Now Principal Prescott is over our necks on the tail end."

"How long have we been trying to do this? Hmm?"

"We had some leads."

"No we didn't. Okay? Not one. So like it or not, no Bryan, no Prescott, and no getting that codex."

"I'm sorry, what are we on about here?" Fernando questioned. "I'm sensing some kind of setback occurring."

"Yeah, about that Fernando," said Max. "There is. Speaking of Ms. Prescott, we got a problem."

"What kind of problem?" Kristen asked. "Did she read that letter she got from Bryan and held for herself?"

"Yeah, yeah, she did," said Max.

"Alright, so..."

"Before she read the letter, she wanted in. That's right. She wants in on this. No exceptions. Or they'll be consequences to pay."

"Que cajo," said Fernando.

"Oh...", said Kristen. "Hmm, so much does she know?"

"Enough that she wants a cut," replied Max.

"Ain't that a bitch?" I ask.

"Max, Alex, if anyone else finds out about this-" said Kristen before I cut her off.

"I'll - I'll work something out with Ms. Prescott," I said. "My dad and I will. Don't sweat it. Right now, let's get onto more important matters."

"Well then, let's talk this out in the dining room," said Max. "Shall we?"

"Yep, let's do that," said Kristen.

I walk into the dining room with Max, Kristen, and Fernando to review Kristen's research on her laptop. She pulled out her laptop from her bag and set it down on the table for us to look at.

"Here it is," said Kristen. "I stayed up late last night just to review what I've found."

"Okay, so what do we got?" I ask.

Kristen pulled up a website with an article on the Eon Codex and every other piece of history related to the Arthurian Legend and the Ark of Genesis. All on a Burke Museum of Natural History web page.

"According to Arthurian Legend," began Kristen. "The Eon Codex was the key to bringing salvation and balance to all time, space, and continuum via the Ark of Genesis and be grant anyone using it the Mantle of Possibility. This codex is at the Burke Museum here in Seattle. There's so much more information after that. It says here that during the first world war, Professor Ezra Prescott and his right hand man, Jeremiah Blackwell, went on an expedition to find the Ark of Genesis when they had their hands on the codex during the conquest between the British and Germans to help the British win the war. Something King Arthur attempted to do to help his people win the Eternity War centuries earlier."

"And this codex itself was recently brought into the museum for the new Arthurian Era exhibit," I said. "And I have big plans to get it into my own hands. Our own hands."

"What big plans?" Max asked.

I raise my eyebrow at her signifying my dirty plan to grab that codex out of the museum.

"Oh...oh, no, no, no, no," said Max. "We are not-"

"Yes we are," I say.

"No we are not! We are not stealing from museum, okay?! That's probably too important of an artifact to be stealing from!"

"Just hear me out for a secon-"

"Two people were killed trying to steal that!"

"And one made it out alive."

"Yeah, barely. Kristen, did you know about this?"

"Um, no I didn't," she said.

"Fernando, did you?"

"Hell to the no," said Fernando. "I am not going to juvie or getting myself killed over some pendejo codex. Not after what I did for Max today."

"My Dad and I managed to make a forgery of our own. Look, here it is."

I pull out the replica of the Eon Codex my dad made and show it to Max. I show it to everyone else to make sure they see it.

"See this here?" I ask my cousin. "Dad made it for me. One hundred percent accurate from the real thing."

I set down the codex shaped like a rectangle with an orb inside on the table so everyone could see. Everyone is amazed.

"Wowser, how did Uncle Bryan make that?" Max asked. "May I?"

I let Max take the replica for herself to observe it. And so she does.

"Just be careful with that," I say. "Dad spent a fortune just to make that."

"Actually, let me see that," said Kristen out of curiosity, just for being the brain of the bunch.

I let Kristen take it instead so she could analyze how accurate the small replica is.

"Resin with black and silver inlay," said Kristen. "It's well made. It's hollow."

"And why would this Ezra Prescott and his esteban Jeremiah Blackwell go through the trouble of finding a cheap codex?"

"It's not just any codex," I said. "Technically, this is Principal Prescott's ancestor we're talking about who found this as well as King Arthur before him. Kristen, read the inscription."

Kristen turned the rectangular shaped codex to read the inscription written in French.

"Pas de sacrifice, pas de victoire," she began her terrible French, until reading the translation in English. "No sacrifice, no..."

"No sacrifice, no victory," I say. "Learned a little French myself."

"Lucky you," said Kristen.

"There's the benefit of growing up with a dad in archeology," I say. "Max, do you remember that quote by King Arthur? 'Why is all around us here as if some lesser god made the world, but had not force to shape it as he would. Till the high-"

"'Till the high God behold it from beyond and enter it. And make it beautiful'," said Max, finishing my sentence. "We've repeated this qoute over and over since a thousand years ago. But what's the connection?"

"Guys, let's just pretend I never studied Arthurian myths," said Fernando. "And explain to me what this all means and what we're doing here?"

"Okay, during the dark ages of the Arthurian Era," I begin. "Legend has it that King Arthur led his army against the Saxons during the Eternity War to claim himself the Mantle of Possibility. With the help of his wizard, Merlin, who claimed himself the Eternity Gauntlet that was weapon to maintaining the mantle and help Arthur and his army win the war."

"And Arthur led them to victory, right?" Max asked.

"Not really. Some say he lost the war to a Greek celestial known as Ares the god of war. Other say, Ares himself claimed the Eternity Gauntlet from Merlin that won him the war abrubtly."

"Ares? The Greek god of war? How does a myth like Ares exist into this legend?"

"That I don't know. What I do know is that I have a plan this break into this museum to claim our prize. Here's what we're gonna do."


	5. The Burke Heist

Chapter 5 The Burke Heist

Alex

November 9th, 2012

5:08 AM

Seattle Washington

Lake Union

I had told everyone to sneak out of their own home at four in the morning to take on the Burke Museum heist I planned for everyone. Even if it was a school night. When Max, Kristen, and Fernando, arrived at my house without waking up my dad, we get our heist clothes and gear on, sneak into his garage to steal his boat, take it down to the Northwest Dock across from my house, and drive it down Lake Union to travel to the sewage gate that would take us to the BMNHC (Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture). So that we may make history and pull of this dicey heist of ours.

I already feel like downright shit for bringing my little cousin and friends into this just after the bad enough trouble they were already in. Especially on a school night. It was turn late to turn away from this now. No matter much utter trouble we'll be in for doing this, I'd give up everything for the Eon Codex. Including my dad's money we owe Ms. Prescott. Even if it's bribery. Even when my cousin and friends have class in four hours.

I take the wheel on the boat driving through the water on Lake Union between the city and under the bridges when we depart from the dock. My dad had been driving the same yacht since before I was born. I've been riding on this same yacht since I was five years old. Even taught me how to drive it before I had my license and let me drive it when I did have my license. Only with permission. Which as of now, I do not.

"You sure you're up for this?" Max asked.

"Feel a lot better if I had a gun," I admit.

"We won't need them," she said.

"A little insurance. That's all."

"Well, they are just museum guards and we managed to have their patrols mapped out. Relax."

"Relax?" I chuckle. "Relax? You know the lone survivor of the last heist who tried taking the codex was sentenced thirty years in prison. If we get caught, the three of you go to juvenile and I just may get locked up in maximum security for a very long time too. You do realize that, don't you?"

"Better than you do."

"Finally someone with a competent mind," said Fernando. "Am I right, Kristen?"

"Taking on this perilous job was Alex's idea," said Kristen. "Not mine. I'm pissing my pants already. She may fancy this kind of thing, but I don't. We can't afford to make any mistakes."

"Yeah, and we won't," I claim.

We approach the sewage gate a few meters away and I park the boat precisely under it where need be. Our first stop to our goal.

"We're here," I say.

Kristen was to stay behind on the boat to guide us through with her monitor she installed on her laptop.

"I'll stay with the boat and guide the rest of you through with my monitor I installed," said Kristen. "Best of good luck to you all."

We take our heist gear and a cutting torch off our boat and enter through the gate and into the tunnel. Max, Fernando, and I enter into the sewer pipe as planned while Kristen stays behind. I take the torch to cut through some iron bars barricading the sewage pipe. Then Max helps me push open the bars I torched and into the sewer system we go. We didn't necessarily enjoy the smell of sewers, let alone stepping into sewage water everyone takes a piss in, but we kept our complaints to ourselves.

"This way," I say.

The three of us use our flashlight to guide us through the dark tunnels. We can hear rats skewering in the tunnels scavenging for waste to play around with. If your lucky, you could accidentally step on a cockroach. We proceed through the tunnels as planned.

"So what do we do if they switch the patrols?" Fernando asked.

"We figure it out as we go," I answer.

"We cannot fumble our way through this," said Max.

"I don't fumble," I assure her. "I improvise."

"Oh, is that what you call it?" Fernando questioned.

"Yeah, I'm uh...adaptable," I say.

"Adaptable," mocked Max.

"You cocky pendeja," chuckled Fernando.

The less we bickered, the more we were to find our beacon at the end of the tunnel. And we did. Once I lead my cousin Caulfield and senor Rojas to the passage that would simply take us to the museum and found it in front of me, I pointed it out to let them know we were close.

"There," I point out. "What did I tell you? That passage there is gonna take us right under the museum."

"You called it alright," said Max.

"You need to have a little more faith in me, buttercup."

"Okay, this one's on me," said Fernando, pointing out the tunnel he needed to take to play his part.

"Alright, remember, Fernan," I say. "That security room is our only way into the exhibit. But we can't even get close with the floodlights on."

"We've gone over this," said Fernando.

"Just make sure you cut the power by the time we reach the second lounge."

"The light will be out. Buenas noches. Kristen will have the boat waiting at the rendezvous point. Just make sure you get your asses out of there in time."

"Fair enough," said Max.

"Alright, enough chat," I said. "Let's do this."

I mantle over a railing and drop down to the passage floor. Max sticks around on top for a second with Fernando before joining me to say adios.

"Fernando - see you on the other side," said Max.

"Looking forward to it," he said. "Adios, amigo."

Max drops down as soon as Fernando splits to his tunnel. She lands safely on the sewer water with only her feet dirty and not her hands. Then follows my lead.

"You sure you know where you're going?" She asks.

"Don't I always?" I ask. "Don't you love the way the water makes your jeans all squidgy? It's like the good ol' days, isn't it?"

"Yeah, when were those again?"

"Oh I don't know. That camping trip years back in the Tillamook? Remember? With Dad, Ryan, Chloe, and William?"

"Don't get me started."

When walking through the passage, we here Kristen's voice on the radio.

 _"Testing, testing,"_ she speaks. _"This is Kristen West speaking. Anyone read me? Over."_

"We copy, Kristen," said Max. "Over."

"Roger, roger, Kristen," I said. "Over."

 _"Si, Kristen,"_ said Fernando. _"Over."_

 _"I'm patching into the security feed now,"_ said Kristen. _"I'm reading your trackers on the GPS system I've downloaded. And no it is not Google Maps. I should warn you that security is gonna be tighter than we predicted. So watch yourself up there once your inside."_

"Thanks for the input, Ms. Obvious," I said. "In other words, your welcome. Alex out."

Once we're down the passage I take Max through, we appear to have been stopped by a dead end. Just when I thought I had the sewer ways mapped out properly.

"Oh wait, this can't be right," I said. "We must've made a wrong turn somewhere."

Before I could radio Kristen for guidance, Max looks up above us to see a whole five feet above us with a ladder we could use to reach up.

"Uh, hey," she says. "Now what do you bet that would take us right into the boiler room."

"And from there, we're in," I say. "Here, I'll give you a boost so you could come on up."

I help my cousin up bending down and cupping my hand together for her to climb on top of me to reach the ladder. Then I lift her up when she's on my shoulders and her fingers touch the oars.

"Here it comes," she says hanging on.

Then kicks the ladder down for me to climb up with her.

"Thanks," I say.

Then we have to carefully climb on some bricks on the walls to reach another ladder up to the manhole hatch. I've been climbing since I was seven years old. Just not with Max who wasn't often around and was only three or four at the time.

"Almost there," she says climbing on the second ladder.

"No guts, no glory," I say.

Then she makes it to the top to open the hatch and poke her head through the manhole into the boiler room. Max checks her surroundings for the coast to be clear. And then we both climb over the manhole and seal it shut with the hatch. Into the boiler room we go.

"Alright, this is the way to the courtyard," said Max.

I run into some pipes blowing off steam and almost burn my hands poking into the steam.

"Ow, well, we're not going this way," I said. "Not if you want to keep your skin."

"Alright, there's gotta be a shut-off valve somewhere."

"See if you can find it then."

Max eventually sees the shut off valve close by and turns it to shut off the steam. Then we're free to go.

"You got it," I say to her.

Once we proceed further into the boiler room, we take cover between some windows where we see guards patrolling. We had found our way inside the museum. We now had to be cautious.

"Okay, now there should be a door just around this corner," I said. "That's our access point. Once we're through, just stick to the plan. You got me?"

"Tell me you didn't miss this," said Max.

"I'm here, aren't I?"

The two of us find a door into the main museum building. When Max attempts to open it, it's locked up tight.

"It's locked," she said.

"Good job I came prepared," I say holding up a pair of lock picks.

Max smiles.

"I pick more than my nose, little cousin," I said.

Before I start picking the lock, Max stops me to take a sharp notice of an alarm box on top of the door.

"Wait!" She shouts. "There's an alarm. That's new since last time."

"Great, now what?" I ask.

"Well, I can disarm it if we find the junction box. It's gotta be around here somewhere."

Max pokes around the room for a minute to find the junction box. When she does, she opens it up and pulls down a red lever to shut off the alarm. Then I'm free to pick through the lock.

"There, that oughta do it," said Max.

I simply pick through the lock as my dad had taught me and the door to the museum opens sesame like easy street.

"Alright, we're in," I said.

Once we're past the door and enter a small room inside the museum, we get behind some corners to hide from a coming guard that approaches and stops in between us.

"Shit," I whisper.

"I got him," said Max.

Max steps out of cover, quietly approaches the guard, and smacks him in the head from behind. Then lifts the guard knocked out on the floor to drag him out of sight.

"Sweet dreams," said Max.

Max and I step into the halls of the museum treading carefully to avoid attention from any nearby guards. We hide behind a wall where we see a way to the Arthurian exhibit with guards holding flashlights in their hands guarding the main entry. There had to be another way around them.

"There's the exhibit," I point out.

"Yeah, but we can't just walk in there with those guards posted," said Max. "Any ideas?"

"Kristen do you read me?"

 _"I read you, Alex. What is it?"_

"I think we just found our exhibit, but it doesn't look like we can just walks through the front door. Any other ways in?"

 _"Let me see. I think the only other way in is through the next lounge. There should be a gate next to you that should take you to it."_

"Then that's our window. Alex out."

"Let's do it," said Max.

On the way over to the gate of the next lounge, more guards on patrol interfered into our path and we both immediately get behinds some corners to stay hidden.

"Crap," said Max.

"I've got the other one," I said.

We slowly approach the two guard down in front, grab them by the shoulder, and knock them down on their feet. I give my guard a head butt to the face and Max gives her guard a really good smack on the face, a kick in the groin, and a real hard punch in the nose. Max was tougher than she made herself to be. If only she could show that off to Gus's face before he was kicked out of school. Couldn't blame her for not.

The coast was clear, the light was green, and we were free to enter through the gate. It was locked down, but we could simply lift it upward together with our muscles.

"Okay, we should be able to lift this up," said Max. "Sneak right under."

"Whoa, whoa!" I shout. "Not so fast. There's another alarm."

"Ah, great. You wanna get this one?"

I frown at Max. I would take turns, but she can climb up to the alarm box faster than me. She sighs.

"Wait, here," she says.

Max climbs up the gate to the fuse box on the wall ledges. Then simply opens box to flip the switch down and the alarm is shut off. And then returns to the floor to help me life the gate open. We both put our hand under the gate door to start lifting it open.

"Alright, one, two, three..." says Max before using her muscles with me.

I go first to crawl under the gate and it's lifted open enough. Then I hold it open on the other end for Max to crawl under as well. Once she's through, we gently lower the gate shut and proceed into the lounge next door.

"Alright, we got to get across this lounge to get to the exhibit," said Max.

"Just let me do the tour guiding, alright?" I ask my cousin.

"Right."

"Let's get past that fountain. While we get past the guards."

The two of us quietly move past the guards patrolling the fountain as they look in the other direction with their flashlights beaming the area to avoid detection. Once we're past the guards, we get inside the dinosaur exhibit with the T-Rex skeleton displayed in the center. As well as guards patrolling every corner in the room with the dinosaur. Now's the time for a little improvisation.

Max

November 9th, 2012

5:23 AM

Seattle, Washington

Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture

My big cousin and I hide behind a fossil display in the dinosaur exhibit to stay out of sight from the guards above and below. The know-it-all Alex is, she comes up with another improvisation just like the lock picks.

"Crap," I say, looking at the guards ahead of us. "Now what?"

"It's time to tip the odds back in our favor," said Alex, pulling guns from our gear bag.

"Oh that's brilliant, guns?!" I mutter. "What are you thinking?"

"Relax, Gandhi. They're tranquilizer guns. Totally non-lethal. Your conscience will remain unscathed."

"Oh, well, good idea."

Alex hands me one her tranquilizer guns and shows me how to use it.

"Great," said Alex. "Okay, a little bit of advice; these things have lousy range. So we still have to get in close. You okay with that?"

"I've never really shot guns before," I said. "But yeah, I'm okay with that, genius."

"Alright, let's take these guys out."

Well, at least these guns aren't lethal. That's a good thing. My mom and dad would kill me if I ever used one that is.

We get in close enough to the guards to get a decent range and shoot them with our tranquilizers. Our darts hit the guards and they drop to ground unconscious. This should be fun putting these guards to bed.

There were two more guards left to take out on the walkway. We move in closer for range and dart the both of them. Just like the last pair of guards, they collapse to their knees and down on the floor in sedation. We really are tipping the odds in our favor just like Alex said. Now all we needed to do was get up on the walkway in the exhibit above us to reach our destination.

"We got to get up to that walkway," I said.

"Good thing I thought ahead of time," said Alex.

Alex took her grappling hook from her belt and swung it over the railing on the walkway. There was no ladder to reach on top and it's good thing my cousin is full of contingencies. Plus, knows how to climb. I let her climb up first and then it was my turn. Even though I don't do a whole lot of climbing, I at least know how to climb ropes in gym.

"All yours, Max," said Alex. "After you."

Once I'm up on the walkway, I pull the rope back and give it to Alex, and climb up a skylight window that's left open for us to walk on the roof. Alex helps her little cousin up the roof. When we're on the roof, can see the big glass windows that we know is above the new Arthurian exhibit. We were getting closer.

"Alright, there's the exhibit," I say. "Through those windows."

"Getting closer," said Alex.

"Appreciate that update, Captain Obvious."

"I wasn't talking to you. Kristen, you hear? We're almost to our destination. Just got to in there from the roof and the codex is ours."

 _"Roger that, Alex. Have you heard from Fernando?"_

"No, but speaking of, I should check on him right now. Fernando, you still with us amigo?"

 _"Comprendo, amigo,"_ he said. _"I should let you guys know that I've almost made it to the security room. There's gonna be a guard in there and I'll have to deal with him first. Wish me luck."_

"Don't be long, Fernan. Alex out."

We move up closer to the windows on the roof and then hide behind some air generators. Seeing there were still lights that were on from inside. We couldn't get in with them on.

"Ah shit," I said. "We can't get any close with the room lit up like that. Where the hell is Fernando?"

"Come on, Fernan," said Alex.

Then the light flickered off inside and we were free to enter.

"That's my boy," said Alex.

We approach the windows with the room gone dark. Alex uses her lock picks to unlock one of the windows and open it for us to break inside. Then pokes her head through to check the coast.

"Okay, we're clear," she says.

Alex takes her rope and tosses it down the window for us to climb down on.

"Ladies first," she said.

"Ha, cute," I said. "Here we go."

My cousin allows me to go first this time. I slide down the rope to the Arthurian exhibit and drop down to the floor safely. I look around the exhibit for the codex as Alex slides down next. So far, I only see knight's armor and weaponry displayed in the room. As well as some portraits of the knights of the round table and so many other knick knacks and treasury. Until eventually the codex catches our eyes inside a glass display.

"Ah, there it is," said Alex.

"Yeah, and there's the acoustic alarm," I said. "Until we get this case unlocked, that thing gonna go off if we so much touch this glass."

"No worries, darling."

Alex pulls out her picks again and opens the glass case easy as pie.

"Voila," she gloats.

"Alright, you sure this is the right one?" I ask.

"Well, I guess there's only one way to find out."

"Do you still got the forgery?"

"Yeah I do. Right here."

Alex gets out the replica Uncle Bryan made and replaces the codex displayed in the case with it. Then holds the real codex in her hands to analyze the merchandise.

"Sorry, Arthur," she says.

"Now what do we do?" I ask.

"Okay, Max. According to Arthur's notes, the codex will light the way to reclamation. Meaning this codex is light sensitive. You see this little orb thing? If the notes are correct, we just might have what we're looking for."

"Okay, so...where do we find light?"

"Easy. We've got flashlights. Check."

Alex takes her flashlight, shines her beam through the orb of the rectangular MacGuffin, and the orb absorbs the energy from the light. Shining an iridescent projection of a globe map on the glass ceiling of the room. It was incredible. The question was, what did it mean?

"Wowser, it's a map," I say. "It looks like it guides us to places. Some places on the other side of the world. But where? And why?"

Then there was text projected on the map that gave us more clues. Alex read it when it appeared on the map itself.

"Look what it says here," she began. "'Our ships were driven by a great flood tide into the coast of a Greek island.'"

"Sounds like they were hit by a tsunami."

"Yeah, somewhere in the Mediterranean Sea."

"Well good. That narrows it down a bit."

"Look, there's some island marked on here that must've been the closest landmark where they went aground. We find that island, we find the ships."

"Yeah, good work, Alex."

"Wait, wait, there's more. 'As if the ocean itself sought to throw off the terrible cargo from Meridian Prime.' The curse of the Eternity War."

"That mean something to you?"

"Meridian Prime...oh my dog, Max."

"What?"

"King Arthur found Meridian Prime."

I shrug.

"What Jeremiah Blackwell's letter said. The one Ms. Prescott read to us. The island the Eternity War took place."

"You're joking."

"If Arthur and Ezra Prescott were both after the Ark of Genesis during their crusade, it might still be there."

"That is all very fascinating, but we've really got to go."

"Yeah, I'm right behind you."

As soon as Alex turns off her light to stop projecting the map with the codex, that is when the trouble begins. A guard walks in the room with his flashlight aimed at us. I gasp in fear as our eyes turn sharp towards trouble.

"Hey, how did you kids get in here?!" The guard yelled. "This private property!"

"Oh - uh...hey there," said Alex in nervousness. "We were just-"

"Hands in the air! Now!"

We do as the guard tells us until someone hits the guard in the head with a vase as it shatters on him. When the guard is knocked out on the floor, Fernando is revealed to be the one saving our skins from arrest.

"Hola, Alex. Hola, Max," he said. "Coma esta?"

Suddenly, the alarms were set off in the museum. Alerting every guard to our presence. Now we've officially committed a thirty-year prison sentence crime. Or worse, we were now gonna get outselves shot on sight for this.

"Hijo de puta," said Fernando.

"What the fuck just happened?!" I mutter. "How did we set off the alarms?!"

"Do you want to find out?!" Alex shouted. "Let's get the fuck out of here and bail!"

We here voices of guards closing in. That is when Alex, Fernando, and I run out of the exhibit and make a break for the rendezvous point taking the codex with us. We race across the halls before any of the guards catch us. The alarm is off and red lights are now flashing.

"God dammit!" I snap.

 _"Alex, Max, Fernando, what the hell just happened?!"_ yelled Kristen on the radio. _"What did you do?! Why's the alarm going off?!"_

"Huh, good news is, we've got the codex," said Alex. "Bad news is, we may have just been discovered somehow doing so!"

 _"Shit! I knew this would happen! I'm taking the boat to the rendezvous point on the double! Kristen out!"_

"Alex, where are we going here?!" Fernando asked.

"Back to sewer system!" Alex answered. "There's another pipe network they'll take us right where Kristen will be picking us up! Double time!"

"But which way?!" I ask.

"I don't know! We'll get down to the sewers and find out!"

Perfect convenience. We've just got ourselves caught from stealing a stupid codex and Alex doesn't know the way to our extraction point. And there are guards with flashlights shining through the halls who will throw us in juvie if we don't find a way out quick. It doesn't help but to hit a dead end in our faces.

"Shit! Dead end!" Alex griped.

"Uh...the window!" Fernando pointed out. "Max, give me a hand!"

"Hurry up!" Alex muttered.

As I hurriedly help Fernando with the window to run outside, the guard were now shooting at us with lethal weapons. What in the fuck have we got ourselves into?

"Excellent, now they're shooting at us?!" I whine.

"Max, Fernando, now!" Alex shouted, taking cover from the bullets.

Then the windows are open and we're free to flee.

"There it's open!" I shout.

"Got it!" Fernando shouts.

"Then go!" Alex shouts.

"Vamos!"

We flee across an outdoor courtyard in the museum away from the guards to find a sewer hatch for us to enter underground again. No sign of any manhole for us to climb down under.

"I don't see a sewer hole cover!" I shout.

"Right now let's just get away from the guards!" Alex shouts.

"Down this way!" Fernando shouts.

As we run across the outdoor courtyard, guards start closing in and start shooting at us like Bambi's mother. Whoever authorized such lethal force must be a complete psycho to just shoot their intruders on sight when we're only just teenagers. With the exception of Alex being a twenty year old adult. A young adult at that.

"What the fuck is wrong with is wrong with these guys!" I shout while being under fire. "Aren't we a little too young to be getting shot at like this!"

"Do you want to stick around and find out?!" Alex muttered. "Move it!"

"They're surrounding us!" Fernando shouted. "Which way?!"

"This way!" Alex pointed out. "Ah, no, no, no, no, wait! Over here! Come on! Come on!"

Alex takes us down a tight shortcut through the courtyard to find a way to shake the guards off our tails. She finds a door back inside the museum but finds it locked shut as she tries heaving it open with her arm.

"Dammit! It's locked!" She bickers.

"Chicas, I think I found a manhole!" Fernando called out.

Right he was. Fernando conveniently found the manhole that would be our ticket out of this fiasco. He opened the hatch to the hole for us to climb down to the sewer and escape. That we did.

"Let's go!" Fernando shouts.

"Yeah, after you," I say.

The three of us slide down the ladder for us to escape quicker down the sewer and make sure to seal the manhole hatch on top of us. Then Fernando and I let my cousin guide the way.

"Down this way! Follow me!" Alex ordered.

"Are you sure?" Fernando questioned.

"Yes! C'mon! Move it!"

As we run down the sewer, Alex accidentally falls through some sheet metal on the ground and falls down to a lower pipe. I stop in my tracks to look down where she fell. Alex landed on her back when she hit the floor.

"Alex! Alex, are you okay!" I shout. "Come up here! I got you!"

"No! Just go!" She orders. "Go with Fernando! I'll catch up with you!"

"Max, we got to go!" Fernando shouted. "Forget Alex! We need to move now!"

"I said go, Max! I'll meet you at the boat! Go! Now!"

 **X/SQUARE/LM - FOLLOW ALEX**

 **B/CIRCLE/RM - FOLLOW FERNANDO**

"I'm going with, Alex!" I belay. "We'll meet you at the meet you at the boat!"

"Max, no!" Fernando hollered.

No matter what happens, I can never leave family behind. Now that I've dropped down with Alex on her pipe, Fernando leaves without us as I help my older cousin up on her feet and flee.

"What the fuck are you doing, Max?!" Alex scolded. "I told you to stay with Fernando!"

"You're welcome, Alex!" I mutter. "I'm not leaving you behind!"

"I'm not leaving you either, Max! Let's move it!"

When I run down Alex's pipe with her, we can hear the voice of the angry museum guards stalking the sewers still hunting us down. We had to get back to Fernando fast.

"We need to catch up with Fernando quickly," says Alex.

"You think?" I ask.

"I know."

The relentless guards gain on us from the walkway between us and start shooting at us again from the railings. Luckily, we give them the slip just in time when they catch us.

"I'm telling ya, Alex!" I scold. "This heist was an awful and suicidal idea from the start! Your awful idea from the start! And now you're getting us all killed!"

"Don't patronize me, Max!" Alex blustered. "We've to move it! Now!"

Even after losing the last batch of guards, there were more than meets the eye. We still hear voices hollering across the sewer. This was no fair escape. This was a suicide run at it's finest.

"These guys are everywhere," I say. "It's like they don't want us to leave or something. This sewer is a maze."

"After this, let's stay out of museums for a while, eh?" Alex says.

"Oh shit! Guard!"

A guard aims his gun at us from another walkway and orders us to freeze. That's until Fernando appears out of nowhere to save the day.

"Hola, cabron!" He shouts out.

Fernando gets the jump on the guard, wrestles his gun from him, kicks him in the scrotum, and whacks his head with the gun to knock him off the railing.

"Hey, Fernan!" Alex called. "Good to see you, amigo!"

"No more kamikaze bullshit!" He mutters. "We're getting close! Vamos!"

We get up to the walkway he ran on by using a ladder he kicked down for us. Before we knew it, we were really getting close. We could see another sewer gate wide open that shines daylight at the end of our tunnel. That's where Kristen must be waiting for us.

"There's the sewer gate!" Fernando pointed.

"Like I said, stick to the plan," said Alex.

"Yeah, don't celebrate yet," I said.

"They don't see us," said Alex. "That way. Kristen you read us? We're almost at the sewer gate. Be there when we are."

 _"I almost got the boat over to the gate,"_ says Kristen. _"I'll be there in less than a second. Kristen out."_

"Do you still have that codex, Alex?" I ask.

"No shit I do," says Alex. "Right here in my bag."

"This had better been worth the trouble, Alex. I mean it."

Suddenly, we hear a loud tremor from inside the sewer. Felt like an earthquake at first, but was much worse. It was the sound of water current incoming. An enormous water current at that. A large marrow of water was now flooding the sewers behind us that would wash us out. We could see it before our eyes. Now we had a far worse reason to pick up the pace.

"Ah hell," I say.

"On me!" Alex ordered. "Get to the gate! Now!"

Even with a massive flood ready to wash us out, there were still guards dropping in to shoot us on sight. We kept running as they kept firing as the water kept bucketing.

The three of us had to jump up to the pipe that would take us to our final run down to our rendezvous point. Fernando jumps up and mantle over the ledge first. Then he help me over the ledge next as I take his arm and he pulls me up. Now it was Alex's turn to get her ass up here.

"Alex!" I call to her as she keeps running. "C'mon! I'll pull you up!"

Bullets were still flickering over us, the water was getting closer, but Alex makes it in time for her to jump up and grasp my hand. Until...a terrible thing occurs. A terrible thing that changes my life in the blink of an eye.

Before Alex could just barely mantle herself over the ledge as I pull her up, bullets fly through Alex. Puncturing through her skin as she is shot in the stomach. I pause with my heart racing. I stare at Alex in the eye as she stares back with a drip of blood drooling down her lip. Alex was hit. Alex was shot. Alex was dying.

"Alex - no," I panic. "No, hold on!"

My dying cousin gasps for air as she spits a droplet of blood from her mouth and slip back down from the ledge. I hang onto to her by her hand as tight as I could.

"Alex! Gimme your other arm!" I cry. "C'mon, reach!"

And then it happened. The grip on her arm grew lighter and lighter as she's released from my grasp, collapses down to the bottom, and then her lifeless body flushed away from me by the water current. Alex was dead. The guards had killed her.

"No! Alex!" I whale.

What have I done? I just watched the one person that made my life happy since I left Chloe die because of me. My heart still races. I cup my hand over my face and shed a tear down my cheek. This did not just happen. Not her. Not now.

"We gotta move!" Fernando scolded, seizing my arm.

"No, no, she's still down there!" I sob.

"No, she gone. C'mon, the boat's just beyond the gate. Kristen's waiting."

"No! No, I can't! I can't - I can't leave her behind!"

"Max, you're cousin is dead! Either come with me or join her."

"No, she just-"

"Have it your way!"

I take one last good glace at the flooding water that flushed out my late cousin. This could not be for real. This was a nightmare. It had to be. Won't count on it. I had to keep running. For guards were still shooting at us.

"Alex...", I moan.

I resume back to Fernando and catch up with him to push forward to the extraction. How could this happen? Alex is dead because of me. I let her do this just to get her killed when it was I who was the little cousin and her the older having the responsibility over me and not having any responsibility over her. I knew better than this. My naive decision to let her do this got her killed. Now I knew how felt loosing the most imperative person in her family back in Arcadia Bay. And now I've just lost the most imperative person in my family here in my home away from home in Seattle.

I kept running with Fernando loosing the guards and bullets for good this time. He jumps out of the gate as it was just dead ahead from me now. And then I jump for it. Jumping out the gate higher than a kangaroo. I could see Fernando landing in the water of the lake between the city.

I scream my lungs out hopping out of the floodgate and plummeting down in the water where Kristen parked Bryan's boat waiting for us. My body plunges into the water for a second or two until I think about swimming back to the surface.

Alex is dead. And I would have to live with it scaring me for a lifetime. Maybe.

 **Glass - Daughter (1:35)**

 **WickDaLine presents...**

 **A Life is Strange fan fiction...**

 **In curtesy of Dontnod Entertainment...**

 **LIFE IS STRANGE**

 **ETERNITY WAR**

 **Story outlines by...**

 **WickDaLine**

 **Writing** **structure by...**

 **WickDaLine**

 **Narrative design by...**

 **WickDaLine**

 **Based on the characters by**

 **Christian Divine**

 **Fan fiction characters created by**

 **WickDaLine**

 **Written and edited by**

 **WickDaLine**

 **Musical score by**

 **Henry Jackman**

 **Before the Storm music by**

 **Daughter**

 **Starring**

 **Hannah Telle**

 **Fryda Wolff**

 **Ashly Burch**

 **Erin Yvette**

 **Don McManus**

 **Christopher Emerson**

 **Cissy Jones**

 **Laura Bailey**

 **Brandon Keener**

 **Simon Templeman**

 **with**

 **Ron Perlman**

 **and**

 **Jennifer Hale**

 **LIFE IS STRANGE**

 **ETERNITY WAR**

 **Episode 1: Genesis**

 **Note: Now you may realize why Max wouldn't bring her cousin up when she first saw Chloe again on that Monday and why she was transferred to Blackwell back in Arcadia Bay. She believed her cousin to be dead since then. And it would appear that Chloe was not the first person for Max to watch die before her eyes and only eleven months later should would. But...you shall note that this is not the last you will see of Alex. For the adventure of the cousins Caulfield has only just begun.**

 **In warm regards, stay tuned for more chapters and stay golden!**

 **P.S. I fell in love with Daughter's musical score in Before the Storm and I'm dreaming of her partnering with Henry Jackman to score this story! His music for Uncharted 4 and the Lost Legacy feels on par with Daughter's Before the Storm music to me IMO. Thank you. ;]**


	6. The Vancouver Job

Chapter 6 The Vancouver Job

Max \- Age 21

July 3rd, 2017

10:29 AM

Portland, Oregon

Portland State University

 **5 years later...**

Today was the day. The day I present my work in the Jarvis Arts program at the Portland State University in front of every art journalist in Oregon up on the stage of the University theater. To determine my preparation of the Vancouver Job I would take as my art career in photography. The man running the art presentation was my professor and mentor Bernard Jarvis. A British photographer from London and a legendary one at that.

The same kind of legend Mark Jefferson was. As well as the same cultural stereotype he once was. Only that he was a blonde with glasses but no facial air. Even wore a jacket and slacks too. And though Jefferson alone could have been my professor for life, had he not have been the perverted and pedophilic criminal he was, Professor Jarvis has twice the artistic reputation compared to Jefferson's. In fact, Jarvis and Jefferson alone used to be pals together back in Seattle before Jefferson was jailed and executed.

Even though Jarvis was my art mentor now, I always kept in mind that the last couple of mentors I trusted manipulated me until I was betrayed. The first one I trusted shot my girlfriend in the face and drugged me in a dump to take pictures of my collateral innocence. And the other one I trusted had my girlfriend and I chloroformed in a parking garage so he could tear the world down like Loki in the Avengers just for him to reign in hell and everyone else to serve in heaven.

I would bring a gun with me incase something was up with Jarvis, but I'd get arrested for weaponry and maybe even suspended or expelled from the university. Luckily, I've known Jarvis for three years well enough for him to stay on my good side. If him and I could keep that up, I could easily lay down my paranoia.

And so here I am. Up on the stage in front of dozens of people sitting in their seats viewing my presentation I've been practicing for weeks until now. Today I was presenting my works of art to the people. My project I was presenting involved photographing and capturing the serenity of the atmospheric environment and weather patterns.

I had taken shots with my expensive digital camera. Not William's old camera I used to take pictures with. I would take shot of the city park, streets, buildings, and even shots taken during the winter time which were my favorites. Then I would digitally publish and develop them into better quality and resolution. I called my project "Little Pieces of Time".

I presented every shot I constructed to the art press projected on the smart board using a remote and laser pointer. I had spoken to the audience using an earpiece with a microphone for everyone to hear my voice. There was also a teleprompter above the crowd in front of me to help me memorize what to say.

"As you see here," I say presenting my shots. "Digital augmented retro-framing or DARF, I gotta work on that acronym, an extremely costly method of captivating the serenity of my quality shots. My art teacher in high school once talked about a famously made a film by Alfred Hitchcock called 'Little Pieces of Time'. The title that inspired this project. He also said that Hitchcock could've been talking about photography as he likely was. These pieces of time can frame us in our glory and our sorrow. From light to shadow. From color to chiaroscuro. Without his teachings, I wouldn't have been able to ascend my asserted potential."

So far so good. Going on my senior year in college, I'm no longer the girl in class with a shitty Polaroid portrait with the classroom laughing at me. I'm a maturely trained protégé in the institute of art talking to a mature audience embracing my essential charisma. I continue speaking to my audience glancing at the teleprompter a few times while keeping my eyes forward to the people.

"Plus, six hundred in eleven thousand dollars for my digital work. No one in the right mind would've funded it. All I can say is that it was just following the PSU mission statement. 'We sustain our urban region through our creativity, knowledge, and expertise. We dedicate ourselves to learning, research, sustainability, and engagement. We educate ourselves to a diversity of lifelong teachings. So that our research and learnings would have a global impact.' Well, I think about that mission everyday within a year's work of this digital project. And quiet as it's kept the challenges I've faced was an ambitious errand. Plus, I'm almost broke."

The press takes a soft chuckle at what I said about being broke. Sarcasm always entertains the audience.

"Oh, I'm sorry," I continue. "Rather I was. And last but not least, against all odds, I took every shot, every opportunity, and every little detail of my surroundings to obtain for my project to prove to every one of you how likely my future's yet to come. Until now, I'll never stop pursuing that future until it is fully written by it's artist. Which is me."

Before I can finish my presentation, the teleprompter read an error that was supposed to be fixed but someone clearly forgot. I voice pauses with the error that reads: **Now I would like to introduce you to my high school art teacher and mentor: Mark Jefferson.** Has someone been living under a rock? My teacher was declared a convicted murder and sent to prison years ago. It was all over the media. And even if he hadn't, I told no one he was involved. Luckily, I say two simple words to close my presentation.

"Thank you," I say.

The crowd grants me a round of applause standing up and chanting. Wowser, I must've performed better than I thought I would presenting on stage. I give the audience warm smile before dropping the mic and leaving the stage. I walk backstage to see Professor Jarvis applauding his hands and smiling. I return the gladening grin and walk with him behind stage.

"Fantastic, Max," said Jarvis. "That took my breath away."

"Thanks, Professor," I said. "I'm flattered as you are."

"Now, I must say, you should really work on your voice more often even with a mic on. Just to get the audience more self-engaged."

"I'm trying, Jarvis. But I'm also trying not too hard also."

A lady came power walking towards us to apologize about the error on the teleprompter to me.

"Ms. Caulfield, I am so sorry about the teleprompter," the lady said. "I didn't know we weren't doing mentors. They didn't have time to fix it."

"It's fine, ma'am," said Jarvis. "It didn't ruin her presentation completely. And besides, everyone should know that Jefferson had been given the death penalty years ago. It's almost common knowledge to some degree."

The stage manager had left us alone after Jarvis accepting the apology and we continue our conversation.

"My hero," said Jarvis.

I chuckle.

"C'mon, let us take a walk back to the art building," he said.

I walk with Professor Jarvis down the hall and out of the stage room to take a walk about to the Jarvis Arts building across the street from the university. Leaving the other college students backstage waiting in line to present their artwork after me. We were probably gonna discuss more business about the Vancouver job Javis had been suggesting I'd take for months. A photography job I could apply for after college as a full time job or a part time job before I graduate or both. Which would have to require Chloe and I having to move to Vancouver up on the Canadian and Washington border. Wonder what Jarvis has to say next.

"Hey, so how about you let someone else take the darkroom next time?" Jarvis asked. "You've earned a break."

"No, no thanks," I said. "I'll take a shot over being at the office any day."

"Yeah, well uh, either way it's gonnna be a while till the next shoot."

"What are you talking about? What about Thursday's job?"

Jarvis shook his head.

"Oh, come on, no," I say.

"Got underbid," says Jarvis.

"You gotta be kiding me."

"Hey, competition's tough."

* * *

July 3rd, 2017

11:17 AM

Portland, Oregon

Jarvis Arts Center

When get to Jarvis's art workshop, we step inside his dark room. A dark room where girls aren't drugged to sleep to be captured in a dark corner and look pretty, but rather a dark room where I work as a part time job through college. We stepped inside to see the new photos I took that just got done being developed. Jarvis took the pictures out of the solution and hung them up on string for me to see how they turned out.

"Wowser, look at that," I say.

The pictures I taken were of Mount Tabor Park, the Willemette River, and Pioneer Square. These would've been great for my Vancouver Job presentation. Victoria Chase should see me now.

"I struck chiaroscuro," I said.

"Well you'd be surprised how much how much these photos are worth," said Jarvis. "Client's paying good money for the full quality."

"Sure you don't want to shred them down and make into tiny particles?"

Jarvis chuckled.

"C'mon, let's go celebrate," he said. "First round's on me."

"Bar hopping with you guys?" I ask. "No, no, no. I may be twenty-one, but not unless there's hazard pay. If it's all the same to you, I think I'm just gonna do the paperwork and get home and crash. Raincheck though?"

"Alright, suit yourself. Gotta get back to the university before presentations end. Hey - good work today."

"Thanks."

I turn back to my photographs developed pinned on the string as Jarvis left me. I have to admit, until now, working with Professor Jarvis has turned out to a fine summer job and college job for I as a future photographer. I had once thought of a part time job working as a photo journalist for the Portland Gazette, but turned it down for Jarvis Arts. And I'll say I made the right choice definitely.

As much as I'd like to go drinking with Jarvis and his clients, maybe even with Chloe too if she'd be down, I prefered to stay sober until tomorrow that is the fourth of July. Chloe and I never had too many plans for the fourth, except maybe visit David, Joyce, and my parents in Seattle, but I still had a career to think about. Even after three years in pursuit. Even if an important occassion like Independence Day was tomorrow.

Since David was now in the Chrysalis army, he was going to ride in a seahawk for the Independence Day parade in Seattle tomorrow. The least he could do was send a post card or picture on Instagram.

First things first, the Vancouver job.


	7. SSDD

Chapter 7 SSDD

David \- Age 49 (POV)

Cayce \- Age 31

July 3rd, 2017

3:30 PM

Washington/Oregon Border

Apex Gate

"The more things change, the more they stay the same," said Admiral Penske in his office.

Director Admiral Gavin Penske and Captain Clayton Cage were both in Penske's office having a conversation about the war between Chrysalis and the Continuum Defense Front. (CDF/ConDef) A war that started with the Neo-Chrysalis attack in Portland. A war that has been fought for three years since.

"Boundaries shift, new players step in," continued Penske. "But power always finds a place to rest it's head. We fought and bled alongside Neo-Chrys and the CDF. We shoulda known they'd hate us for it. History is written by the victors. And here I am, thinking we'd won. But you bring down one enemy and they find someone even worse to replace him. Max Caulfield, the traveler of Arcadia Bay, the hero of Portland didn't end the war for us. She continued it. Not deliberately, but almost inadvertently. Locations change. The rationale. The objective. Yesterday's enemies are today's recruits. Train them to fight alongside you and pray they don't eventually decide to hate you for it too."

The admiral turned to the captain now speaking to him eye to eye in front of his desk. After talking to him staring at the sunlight beaming through the blinded windows.

"Same shit, different day," he continued. "You know what I'm looking for Captain Cage. Keep your eyes open."

"Gotta new batch hittin' the pit today, sir," said Cage. "I'll send you the best I find to train the greenhorns. Perhaps Commander Madsen and Corporal Foley oughta be the ones."

* * *

I sit down on a porch in the locker room staring at a photo of my wife and step-daughter from back in Arcadia Bay from four years ago. The one we had taken in the yard back when Chloe was calling me step-fuhrer and step-douche. It had been two years since Joyce and I moved out of Arcadia Bay for my new career enlisting in the Chrysalis army.

Ever since Portland, I was always prompted for a more apt career in Chrysalis compared to a failed security chief in Blackwell or a police deputy in the ABPD. And ever since, getting my step-daughter, her girlfriend, and ex-girlfriend out of the attack alive was the accomplishment I could've made for the three of them. After that, I had talked Joyce into joining the corps and she let me take it. Even if it would complicate our marriage. Tomorrow I would be attending the Independence Day parade with Joyce, Ryan, and Vanessa in Seattle up on a Seahawk with all the other Chrysalis veterans. I'd be sure to send Chloe and Max a postcard or a photo on my Instagram account to Portland for the honorable occasion.

Corporal Foley, who I call by his first name Cayce, enters the locker room and see me sitting here. Then solutes to his commanding officer and partner.

"Commander," he begins. "We have new orders, sir."

"You can still call me David if you like," I say. "What do we got?"

"We've got new recruits waiting at the pit. Cage's orders."

"Sounds important. Let's get to it."

I walk with my partner Cayce down to the firing pit on Cage's orders. We walk outside the locker room where people are training outdoors at Apex Gate. The Apex training grounds at been occupied with trainees jogging around meandering singe file, tanks and jeeps patrolling the roads, and choppers flying around the field. As Admiral always says, same shit, different day.

Over the years, I had been assigned to command Fire Team Valor of the 77th regiment. The team included me Commander David Madsen, my partner Corporal Cayce Foley, Lieutenant Corporal Kristine Prescott who had enlisted the same year I had when retiring from Peace Corps and the team's medic, Captain Colonel Clayton Cage who I serve as his second in command, Lieutenant Jeb Mason who serves as Cage's second in command, Lieutenant Sergeant Andrew Newblood, Staff Sergeant Carlos Logos, Major Sergeant Cheryl Heard who was Cage's third in command and a former drill sergeant at Apex, and Lieutenant Amanda Lynch serving as our Seahawk and jet fighter pilot.

Cayce and I proceeded to the firing pit where Cage and the new recruits were waiting.

"So who are greenhorns we have today?" I ask.

"Just a few youngsters fresh out of selection," said Cayce. "The academy picked them all by their resumes. The good ones as so. Most of them will be joining other teams. I believe one of them will be joining our team today as well."

"Just another fun field day at the office. Or should I say the same shit on a different day at Apex. Boy, do I sound like Penske."

Eventually, we come across Cage and his trainees lined and standing at the pit waiting for us. When I catch Cage's eyes, he takes a moment to walk up and shake me hand.

"Cage," I say.

"Captain," says Cayce.

"You look good, Madsen," says Cage shaking my hand. "Maybe a little soft around the edges. How you holding up since starting work here at Apex?"

"It's not so bad once you get used to the hot food and soft beds," I said.

"Okay, let's make this plain," said Cage turning to his recruits. "Alright, everyone. Welcome to Pull-the-Trigger 101. I'm Captain Cage. This is Commander Madsen and Corporal Foley. They're gonna be doing a quick weapons demonstration to show you locals how it's done. No offense, but I see a lot of you guys firing from the hip and spraying bullets all over the range. You don't end up hitting the damn thing, it's gonna make you look like an ass. Commander Madsen, show 'em what I'm talking about. Grab that weapon off the table and fire the targets behind you."

I pick up an automatic rifle off table and do as instructed. I pull the loader and turn to the targets in the pit behind me.

"Turn around and firing at the targets," said Cage.

I fire a couple of targets that flip upward without aiming down the sights for poorer accuracy. I shoot two of them from the hip.

"See what I mean?" Cage asked his trainees. "He sprayed bullets all over the damn place. You've got to pick your targets by deliberately aiming down your sights from a stable stance. Commander Madsen, show our friends here how the Valor Team takes down a target. Crouch first, then aim down your sight at the targets."

I crouch down as Cage tells me to and aim down the sights on the rifle. I shoot three targets down in front to demonstrate to the greenhorns how to shoot more acurately like chocolate cake with whoop cream on top. I've been doing so since I was twenty-one.

"That's all there is to it," said Cage. "You want your targets to go down, you gotta aim down your sights. Aiming down your sights also works for switching quickly between targets. Aim down your sights, then pop in and out to acquire new targets. Show 'em, Commander. If your target is close to where your aiming, you can snap to it quickly by aiming down your sights."

With all the years of military expertise I had, I locked onto every last target popping off the ground by snapping onto them while firing. I shoot at least eleven targets as they flip upward like scarecrows. Once they're all shot down, I withdraw my gun having showing everyone how it's all done.

"Now that's how you do it," said Cage. "You want to take down your targets quickly and with control. Now if your target is behind light cover, remember that certain weapons can penetrate and hit your target. The corporal here will demonstrate. Take a gun from the table Foley and show 'em what I mean."

It was now Cayce's turn to show the new guys the ropes. He picked up another rifle off the table, aimed his gun at the target cover by plywood, and shot through the wood to demonstrate. Even as a ranking officer, I couldn't be the do-it-all all the time.

"Last but not least, you need to know how to toss a frag grenade," said Cage. "Madsen, Foley, toss a grenade down range to take out several targets at once."

The both of us each take a grenade out of the explosive case, pull the pins, and give the frags a nice good throw down the range into the pit. The explosive projectiles land on the dirt and explode blowing away all the targets spawned in the pit. Like hitting two home runs in a ballgame.

"Good," said Cage. "Note that frags tend to roll on sloped surfaces. So think twice before tossing one uphill. Alright, thanks for the help, Commander Madsen. You too, Corporal Foley. Now get over to the CQC pit. Admiral Penske wants to see you two run the course with the greenhorn assigned to Valor Team. Alright, who wants to go first? Show me what you've learned so far."

We leave the firing range for Cage to educate the new troops alone. Cayce and I talk as we report ourselves to the CQC course under Penske's orders.

"All too easy, isn't it?" Cayce asked.

"Like bread and butter," I said. "As Joyce would say."

"I never asked, how is Joyce these days?"

"She's doing okay. Though she would've preferred not to move away from Arcadia Bay to Seattle and not have me join the army again, she also preferred to let me find a more striving career than Blackwell security or the ABPD. Wouldn't have taken it without her approval."

"You know me. My step-dad used to tell me the same. How's your step daughter, Chloe? Is she doing okay too?"

"Better than the person she used to be four years ago. Still living in Portland with her girlfriend Max. And taking online college with her diploma she received from online high school. Now that's the Chloe I've always wanted to see since the day we first saw each other eye to eye. It was never to late to redeem her comeuppance even as a high school dropout."

"Yo, David!" A voice said from the basketball hoop.

It was Logos the Hispanic sergeant with the ferns and mohawk playing basketball with some other troops in green shirts. Him and I shot some baskets yesterday by the hoop. There was a radio on by the hoop that played 'Till I Collapse' by Eminem.

"Gotta say, those weren't the sloppiest throws I've ever seen you do over the hoop," said Logos.

"Hold on," I said. "Is that a compliment? Cause I'm stunned."

"Nah, you know what's stunning? Your smell."

Logos and his playing buddies had a laugh. Cayce and I chuckled a little with them.

"I don't know, amigo," I said. "I kinda like it. Reminds me of your mom."

They all had a bigger laugh as my partner and I made bigger smiles.

"That's cold, homie," said Logos. "I'm gonna tell her you said that too."

The two of us left them to report to CQC as ordered. Then Sergeant Newblood saw us walking past him and stopped us to talk to us too.

"David, my man," said Newblood. "Saw you with those FNGs. How'd you do?"

"How do you think?" I ask.

"Spot on," he replied.

"Another day, another nickel."

"Ha. You're making the rest of us look bad."

"I'm making the rest of you look good."

"I was once part of the SAS you know. Just saying."

"I was once part of the marines you know. Just saying."

Newblood gives me a pat on the shoulder and walks off. We continue our way down to CQC and find Major Heard monitoring the arms cargo while a truck carrying munitions backs up to a parking space. Heard attempts to stop the driver before backing up further.

"Hey, be careful with the merchandise!" Heard scolded. "Those munitions didn't come from the dollar store you know!"

"They also didn't come from your wise mouth either you know!" The driver shouted back. "I know how to backup, bitch!"

"Sure you do," she spoke back.

When approaching CQC, we could see Lieutenant Prescott talking with other troops. We often call her Kristine or Kris for short. The ex-Peace Corps worker, daughter of Sean and Caroline Prescott, and sister of the late Nathan Prescott turn her head to us approaching. The soldiers she speaks to leaves her for the three of us to talk alone. And so we do.

"What's left of the Prescott family I presume?" I say to her.

"With my mom as the new head of the Chrysalis corporation," she begins. "My dad executed on death row at Quantum Prospekt, my brother killed by a photographic nutcase, and my family's foundation shut down by US government jurisdiction over suspicions of our former ties with Neo-Chrysalis, the herd is thinning every day."

"And the harsher part is," said Cayce. "No one seems to be sorry the Prescott Foundation has ceased operations for the past three years. Allow me to be the first one to feel sorry. Or the second."

"You're the first Prescott I've ever seamlessly admired until now, Kris," I said. "Say no more."

"I appreciate that, David," said Kris. "Okay, I'm heading down to sick bay now to help some wounded from that fight at Atlas Depot. You'll know where to find me."

"Go break a leg, Kristine," said Cayce. "Send your mom my love. Take care."

"Commander Madsen," said a voice approaching.

A young recruit, no younger than twenty-one, approached us carrying a bag with belonging and a rifle. He had been carrying his bag hulling it over behind his shoulder like a backpack when coming closer to speak to me.

"Are you Commander Madsen?" The recruit asked. "Valor Squad?"

The little greenhorn dropped his rifle on the ground and picked it back up as he walked closer. This must be our new edition to the team Cayce had mentioned on the way to the firing range.

"I'm your new, trainee," he said.

"And green as grass by the looks of it," said Kristine. "Time to train the rook?"

 **X/SQUARE/LM - SKIP TRAINING**

 **B/CIRCLE/RM - TRAINING**

"Yeah, lucky me," I said.

"Go easy on the kid, okay?" Kris said before leaving to sick bay.

As she left us, the kid approached us with polite and disciplined manner and stated his name.

"Private Flint Wheeler, sir!" He addressed himself and saluting. "Reporting for duty, sir!"

"Drop the sir shit, kid," I say to my new private. "We're not that polite out here. C'mon, let's go. Oh yeah, welcome to Valor."

"It's an honor to serve with you, sir," said Wheeler. "I hear that you-"

"Commander," I correct him.

"Yes, sir - Commander Madsen. Must be good to know I'm fighting with an Afghan veteran."

"He's just David to me, man," said Cayce. "Name's Cayce by the way."

"Good to meet you, sir - uh, Cayce," said Wheeler. "You can call me Flint by the way. You see action in the war too?"

"Rook, we can talk history later," I said. "Concentrate on your training now. I don't need you getting religious out there."

"Uh, pardon?" Flint questioned.

"Holy," said Cayce.

"Oh, right. Full of holes, got it."

The three us finally make it to CQC where we would train the rook. Once we all get down the training pit, Lieutenant Mason waits for us to show our presence. Admiral Penske stands on the observation balcony overlooking us to see us train with Flint.

"Hey, Commander," said Mason. "Hey, Corporal. Welcome back to the pit. And you must be our new private. Admiral Penske wants to pull a shooter from out unit for some special operations. Anyway he's up there in observation. You can start when ready."

"Why don't you let me handle the rookie, Lieutenant," I said. "He's my responsibility."

"Yes, sir."

As soon as Lieutenant Mason left, Private Wheeler's training had begun.

"Alright, Private," I begin. "First thing's first, rook. Cayce, care to do the honors?"

Cayce

July 3rd, 2017

3:45 PM

Washington/Oregon Border

Apex Gate

I do the honor to volunteer in Flint's training by doing as David says. This is David's first lesson to Flint.

"Go ahead and grab a pistol," he tells Flint.

Flint does as he's told and then I do as I'm told.

"Cayce, pick up your sidearm and then switch to your rifle," said David.

I take my pistol out of my holster. Then switch to my rifle I carry behind my back.

"Now switch to your sidearm again."

I strap my rifle on my back again and take my pistol out of it's holster again to showcase the trick in what's quicker than reloading.

"See how fast that was?" David asks Flint. "Remember, switching to your pistol is always faster than reloading. Now you try."

"Alright, here it goes," begins Flint. "Switch to you pistol, then to your rifle, then to your sidearm."

Flint does exactly what I showed him to see how quicker it is for him to react faster than reloading. First lesson passed.

"Good job, private," said David. "But we're just getting started. Next lesson you'll be getting from me is to check your objective before the bullets fly. Mine says teach the rook the golden rule."

"Oh, I know," says Flint. "Do unto others as you would have-"

"Not out here kid," said David. "Golden rule of the Chrysalis corps is take cover or die. You know how to get into cover, rook? Cayce, show him."

I walk over to some sand bags in the pit outside the course to show the rook the ropes. I show him how to check your surrounding and not letting your guard down before exiting cover. Then I mantle over the bags completing my example.

"Can you do that, Wheeler?" David asked.

"Okay," says Flint. "Keep your head down, eyes open, check your surroundings."

Flint does exactly what I showed him to do with ease. Not bad for a rookie. But anyone like him would've gotten it down the first try as I once had when I was a greenhorn. Pat on the back goes to him.

"Always keep your head down like that in a firefight," says David. "You'll be fine. Okay, time to smile for the cameras and don't miss. Penske's gonna be watching you in the pit. Best shooter gets to join Fire Team Valor if that's your thing. Cayce, head on in to show Wheeler how it's done. Timer starts as soon as the first target pops."

"Yes, sir," I say. "Got it."

I enter the pit to show Flint how I perform as Penske watches. Then the course begins. David gets on the mic to talk me through.

 _"Clear the first area!"_ He orders on mic. _Go! Go! Go!"_

I shoot the first two targets in front of me as the target begins with my rifle. When I shoot my first targets and run to the next position, there are civilian targets I have to avoid shooting. Another golden rule of the corps is to never target civilians. I shoot the next round of enemy targets avoid the civie targets and move into the brick building in the pit.

 _"Area cleared! Move into the building!"_ David shouts on the mic.

I shoot more hostile targets and avoid hitting friendly targets inside the first floor of the building. Then ready to go up on the roof.

 _"Up the stairs!"_

Once I walk up the stairs, a target props open out of nowhere in front of my face next to the doorway to the roof.

 _"Melee with your knife!"_

I instantly jab the target with my knife to knock it down. Then shoot more hostile targets still avoiding friendly targets on the roof above until I'm ready to jump down below.

 _"Area cleared! Jump down!"_

I quickly jump down on my feet from the roof and race to take out the last batch of targets while avoiding more friendlies.

 _"Last area! Move! Move!"_

With the last batch of hostiles down, as well as the last pair of locals saved, it was time to sprint to the finish.

 _"Sprint to the exit! Clock's ticking!"_

Once I cross the finish and make it back to David, it was time for Flint to work out his kinks.

"That's how it's done, rook," said David. "Run like a true professional. Okay, now it's your turn to run the course and work out the kinks. You do just as Cayce just did, you'll do just fine."

"Eye, eye, Commander," said Flint. "Ready when you are."

The greenhorn enters the pit himself. The timer starts once the first pair of targets spawn and the course begins with Flint shooting his first targets. Surprisingly enough for a rookie, his shooting is pretty precise on every target. David guides him on the mic as he did for me and with every hostile target unmissed and every friendly target spared, Flint's performance was promising enough for the team. Eventually we crossed the finish line to be given a gold star and kid of the week.

"Not bad, rookie," said David. "But I've seen better."

"Thanks, Commander," said Flint. "They've taught me well in the academy."

"Okay, head upstairs and regroup with the team," said David. "We'll debrief you when ready."

"Will do," said Flint.

As soon as Flint left, Major Heard came down with a case of munitions in her hands to show us the good that were recently delivered.

"Hiya, Madsen," said Heard. "Hiya, Foley. You're not gonna believe what just came in for Christmas."

"Watcha get us for Christmas this time, Heard?" David asked. "We starting the Holidays before the fourth of July this year."

"Check it out."

Heard set the case down on the table and opened it with a new set of high-tech military grade throwing weaponry developed by Quantic Solutions. This is what she had to introduce to us.

"Say hello to the 370 Chronon Time Grenades," said Heard. "Developed by Quantic Solutions Tech and made with radioactive chrononic material. These toys are designed to freeze some bad boys in stasis. Creating a chrononic pulse when thrown that freezes any organic or synthetic matter in time. Gives our guys the advantage to counterstrike some quantum terrorist shooting specs of lead into little time bubbles a kill their targets like a mule."

"Damn, I gotta say," I speak. "Tech designed by Quantic Solutions is getting lethal these days. Ever noticed that?"

"Well, the bullets would be lethal," said Heard. "Not the chrononic pulse. The plating is made with titanium alloy. Power audacity measures from about one thousand chrono-joules. Optics are as sweet as Dunkin Donuts. Let's not even talk about the power supply. You know how expensive this gear is, son?"

David picks up a time grenade from the case to analyze it with his eyes. Then answers Heard's question with these words.

"Tell that to the CDF," said David.

* * *

Max

July 3rd, 2017

4:05 PM

Portland, Oregon

Jarvis Arts Center

After a few hours shift working at Jarvis's art center, I walk out the front door leaving work and heading home. I be sure to remember to lock the door behind me as Mr. Jarvis constantly tells me to. After locking the door and before heading to me car, Jarvis rushed to me urgently for a quick solid.

"Hey, hey, Max!" He calls. "Hold on."

"Hey, what are you doing here?" I ask.

"Ah...got a present for you."

"Present? What's this?"

Jarvis lends me a paper of an application for the Vancouver job. Not that it's the first application I've received if not the one-thousandth I've received in the last month or two.

"Got some news from my contact about that lead off the border into Vancouver," said Jarvis.

"Oh no," I said.

"Ah, the field's intact."

"Yeah?"

"Opportunity's ripe for the picking."

"You are a persistent one. I'll give you that."

"And...all the money came through for the equipment too. We are all set. Except, ah...my best gal, the gal I trust for the job, the only one. She - she's got cold feet."

"My feet were never warm to begin with. Tell me, this 'contact' of yours...he get the permits?"

"No, he did not get the permits. Can't no one get the bloody permits-"

"Course not."

"But Max, don't you see that works in our favor. No permits means no competition. The field is ours."

"No permits means not go."

"Sigh. Max, this is retirement money. For the both of us. Okay, I don't know about you, but I don't want to be working dark rooms when I'm sixty. Do you?"

"Sure beats college. Listen, I have to pass. And trust me, so should you."

"Okay, just take it with you. Humor me, okay?"

"I'm not gonna change my mind."

"Then don't hurt to sleep on it, does it?"

"Say hi to Lillian and the kids for me, okay?"

"Alright, no pressure, Max. But think about it."

I give Jarvis a sign of me thinking about as I walk away from him to my car. Then he walks away with an amused smirk on his lip. End of the day, I slip on it. That is my final word.

 **Note: For those who have read the first episode of my prequel story the Lost Daughter, you'll notice there are recurring characters from the Chrysalis military including Cayce Foley who had once been Rachel Amber's partner who is now David Madsen's partner. If your scratching your head saying why are we focused on David's POV in this story, as said in the description of this story, he joins the Chrysalis army entering a war worse than Afghan back when he was a US marine. This story is called Eternity War for a reason and you now may be starting to grasp that reason reading this chapter.**

 **I'm also posting this chapter in favor of episode two of Before the Storm releasing tomorrow at my time and region which I'll be playing. Enjoy the second episode everyone! You all stay golden! ;]**

 **P.S. *spoiler* I did kill off Captain Cage in the finale of After the Storm, but have rewritten it to keep him alive for this sequel. Thank you.**


	8. A Normal Life

Chapter 8 A Normal Life

Max \- Age 21 (POV)

Chloe \- Age 23

July 3rd, 2017

4:08 PM

Portland, Oregon

Road to Sygnii Apartments

 **Departure - Daughter**

I hopped inside the driver seat of my car to leave work. I had bought myself a car with hardly earned cash about two years ago prior to our move. I hooked myself up with a Nissan LEAF as my personal transportation to drive to work and college on a daily basis instead having to rely on a bus or Chloe's truck every day as my transport. We would use public transportation such as the bus or a cab, but it'd be costly.

I start my car, back out of my parking space, and hit the road across the streets of Portland. It was a long road from Jarvis Arts to home. At least a forty-five minute drive from here to home, but I've gotten used to the driving for the past three years of living here.

When driving through town, I begin to remember the moments of some familiar places back when Portland was an outskirt for the bad guys. Back when Chloe, Rachel, and I fought and struggles through a skirmish of Neo-Chrys soldiers and Fallen revenant. Every now and then I'd drive across intersections that take me back to those daunting moments between us three. I even drive past the Triple 4 memorial. (Triple 4 is what they called the day of the attack on Portland) Honoring the lives of those lost to the Neo-Chrys attack here in Portland. Treating it like the 9/11 of Portland. Which indeed it was.

I could even see the Chrysalis town from a distance between the buildings I drive past. Remembering being on top of that tower brawling against Crosby with the antenna emitting the Elysium domain portal above me. Then ultimately killing myself sacrificially to save the world from Chronos's domain. Only to be revived and brought to life by the powers of Rachel. Don't even get me started on that reckless decision even more rash then the one I made by the lighthouse. One that would devastate Chloe for life had there been no going back from it.

Interesting to note how Caroline Prescott, the wife of Sean Prescott and mother of Nathan and Kristine Prescott, took over Crosby's shoes when he had been presumed dead after the Portland battle. Everything since that battle, people have spent the last three years rebuilding this city from the ground up. Such as the antenna that fell apart after shutting down the portal via my chrononic energy. No one in town had a crane high enough to put it back together. So they replaced it with a new one and tossed the old one in a salvage fill surely.

It was also a shame the Prescott Foundation was no longer in partnership with Chrysalis since the US government shut them down for suspicious activity with Neo-Chrysalis. Can't say I blame my country's government in making that decision. Perhaps it'll keep my home town of Arcadia Bay safer, my home state safer, and this country as whole safer. Even if the foundation can no longer fund for people which is the only downfall. Not that the foundation has ever made the most reasonable or likeable decision to begin with, it only cripple's the family's reputation. As well as it's accord, internship, and committee. At least the family is allowed to have Chrysalis to themselves to stay in power and boost their rep up a notch.

No matter how life had been for since the attack, at least knew this great city had risen again to the way I once recalled it. Just like Arcadia Bay before that. Once I get on the freeway that maintain more solid roads than recently after the Neo-Chrys attack, I'm closer to home and a few miles to Beaverton where Chloe and I live next to Portland.

Every now and then my mind would revisit the moments fighting the mercenaries on this freeway. The ones posted by the lanes, on the overpasses and underpasses, and besides the traffic signs. Almost as if I was receiving the same kind of PTSD David at times experiences from his war trauma. At least I've been in no accidents if it ever happened. I know now how it feels to be a person like David. But unlike him, I've only experienced one battlefield with my Arcadian comrades/partners in time. And I've learned that even just one battlefield can give you trauma. One uneasy to adjust from.

Regardless, the closer I got to home, the closer I was to ending another long day at the office. I turned to the exit off the freeway to enter Beaverton and down to the street my apartment was located. Then I reach my destination, pull into the parking lot to park my car next to Chloe's truck, and walk inside my home.

* * *

I walk upstairs to the attic in my penthouse to review some of the papers and documents Jarvis had given me about the job in Vancouver. New documents, same dog shit. Frankly, Professor Jarvis will shitting out more papers at my ass until I apply for Vancouver. But at what cost? I must be tired already of reading these. I know Jarvis must tired of handing them out to me constantly. Whoopty doo.

"You really did your homework on this one," I say sitting on my desk in the attic. "Narrowed down the photo ops. It would make a hell of a job. Son of a bitch."

Clearly, I was wasting my time staring at these documents. Time to put them in my recycling chute. I put the papers back in their folder to quit.

"No, no, no way," I say. "You are going with the others."

I put the paperwork in the folder in my filing cabinet on the drawer of the desk and hop out of my spinning chair to wonder around the attic a bit before supper. What to do with all this junk in my attic?

Why not explore some of these memories I've kept in this time capsule of an attic. My friends and family from afar would send me pictures and postcards to my apartment and I would store them here. I had also stored all my knick knacks I had cleaned out of my dorm three years ago back at Blackwell. Such as my guitar, Polaroid collection, string lamps, couch, stereo, laptop, etc.

The first thing I look at is the old picture of Chloe and I as pirates back when we were kids on a frame I displayed on my desk. The two of us were destined to treasure this photo until the end of time. I smile every time just looking at the two of us smiling my eye-patch on and Chloe's pirate hat on. Argh-cadia Bay Pirates starring Long Silver Max and Captain Chloe Bluebeard. Sailing the seven seas in search for the treasure.

I walk up to my shelves to see William's camera displayed next to a Hawt Dog Man statue and a cup of pencils. I may be using a more expensive and advanced camera these days, but I'll always have sentimental value for Chloe's father. I even left the old picture of Chloe and her dad with her cat Bongo she carried in her arms before the cast passed that had been taken with her father's own camera. Now that's what I call sentimentality. Hard to believe it's been nine years since Will had passed now. Harder to believe Chloe's made it this far without her real dad.

I poked around the attic some more to see the rest of the junk I had in stock. The next thing I see his a postcard and picture from Rachel and Frank in Los Angeles. Wowser, is it me or is it actually Rachel and Frank taking a group selfie with DJ Khaled? Rachel's really stirred up the hornets nest with a lot of musical and Hollywood celebrities nowadays. Last summer it was Kanye West. Next thing I know, she'll keeping up with the Kardashians. No pun intended. And Jefferson thought LA would kill her. It revived her.

There was even a photo of Rachel, her boyfriend Frank, and her parents James and Rose smiling in front of the Hollywood sign. Rachel did tell me once her dad was part of the District Attorney back in Arcadia, then moved back to Cali some time after the first year she became friends with Chloe. A note behind the photo read: **Regards from the Ambers and Bowers! - Rachel**. In falsely giving my life to stop the end of time, I not only contented Rachel's dreams, but also reunited the Ambers.

I look at more postcards and pictures from old friends far away. There's Victoria's sorority picture from Berkeley. Which included Victoria Chase herself and the rest of the Blackwell elites that came with her. Such as Taylor Christensen, Courtney Wagner, Dana Ward, and Juliet Watson.

Then there was Warren and Brooke's postcard from Denver. With a picture of them and their science project at the UOD science convention. Their project was based on a machine that can produce carbon nitrogen and refrigerate objects into solid ice. The two of them oughta win a noble prize one day. A note on the back read: **Science rules! - Warren Graham the Science Guy**. Bill Nye reference.

And then there was a picture of Kate and her family's Christian pilgrimage group in front of a church building in Nampa, Idaho. With a note on the back that reads: **God bless you, Max. - Kate**. I sure hope her Catholics and Christianity has treated her and the rest of the Marshs well.

And then I view David's photo of him and his military unit in the Chrysalis Corps he had sent us last summer. The team was known as Valor Team who had the following assigned: David Madsen, Cayce Foley, Kristine Prescott, Clayton Cage, Jeb Mason, Cheryl Heard, Andrew Newblood, Carlos Logos, and Amanda Lynch. Below the photo on the text read: **Chrysalis Corps: There and back again. Valor Team 77th Regiment.** Then the names of the team from left to right and top to bottom.

I couldn't believe Kristine had actually joined the Chrysalis army. Surely, Sean and Caroline didn't raise her to be a trooper and rather a business women or maybe a con woman through Sean's eyes. Just like their son Nathan before he passed on four years ago. Well, her family still runs the company even without the Prescott Foundation. Her mother's the one running the corporate and administrative branch now. Kris would do anything to support her family in the corps. Even for her dead brother. Even for her execution father.

I too recognized Captain Cage in the photo. I'll never forget his face since the Blackwell massacre I started. I somewhat recognize the Cayce face from back during the Neo-Chrys attack here. Rachel once mentioned they worked as partners in the Chrysalis agency during the El Eterno insurgency in Bolivia. He had been part of David's entourage as well. I vaguely remember now.

I then turn to where I placed our old stuff from Arcadia Bay at. There was the box of photos and picture book from back home. I dig inside the box and take a peek at the pictures inside. Nothing but some old pictures of us from when we were children and even photos from when we started dating four years back. Including the photo bomb we took on that Wednesday we first kissed in Chloe's room. Even some picture of Chloe and Rachel that featured the one where Chloe flipped the bird next to Rachel and the one of the two at that Firewalk concert from seven years back.

After skimming through the photos from the shoebox and scrapbook, I then suddenly realize my super secret memory box next to the memories of Chloe and I. It was a box containing the memories of Alex and I. That's when my heart begins to freeze and my face turns pale for a moment. Then I snap out of myself and open the little cardboard box I kept secret from Chloe for as I remember that fateful heist back in Seattle from five years ago. Turns out it was exactly what I thought it was.

Wowser, I don't believe I've actually kept this a secret from Chloe for so long since the Monday we saw each other again in that parking lot. What were you thinking, Max? If Chloe could tell me all about Rachel entering my shoes back in Arcadia Bay, why couldn't I tell Chloe about Alex stepping into her shoes back in Seattle? Why? Perhaps the way Chloe almost lost Rachel was the way I had lost Alex years ago. Not to mention what if she had found out? Doesn't matter. Not unless she comes up here to find this if that day ever comes. Which it'll never as long as it's long hidden from her.

Ironically speaking, I knew exactly what Chloe was feeling when we found Rachel's decaying forgery down that hole in the earth without her even knowing about Alex and without ever telling her as well. We both mourned the flesh of fallen angels. I guess it hurt too much for to talk about her death when I first sat in her truck on that Monday we reunited. We agreed never to keep secrets, but this one would always get to me too greatly.

I even thought about telling her one detail about our adventures in Seattle in her bedroom that first day as well. I've waiting at least one opportunity to tell at least one single detail about Alex to Chloe, but to no avail. I couldn't even have the nerve to talk about her when we visited Seattle together after the storm. Not even then.

The only thing I had left of my late cousin was some pictures of us remembering Seattle, her blue autumn jacket, and Uncle Bryan's journal we stole from the estate the first year I moved during that night I snuck out with her. Do I want to look at the memories we had in Seattle? No. Do I even I to peak at my first selfie I took at the estate I slipped under the pages of the journal? Nada. How about laying a finger on Alex's jacket? Not.

The longer I delay myself from the truth about Alex from Chloe, the more I break my oath of never lying to her. Perhaps it for the best this is all kept from Chloe. For now. If not forever.

A text from my bleeped on my screen and I pick up my phone to read it.

 **Rachel: Max, don't forget about our performance on SYTYCD! Frank and I are back stage now and we'll be on live in half n hour!**

 **Max: No worries! We'll see if u think u can dance real soon! NPI. Did u text Chloe n remind her too?**

 **Rachel: Yes I did. Wish us luck! And don't forget to vote for us via phone or text!**

 **Max: We will! May the best star win!**

Well shit, Max. You completely forgot about Rachel's live performance down in Vancouver that her and Frank have been auditioning for weeks now and all I can think about is my dead cousin. I better get back downstairs soon.

Rachel had also been attempting to access herself an acting career in Hollywood. Which she sort of did, but also wanted to audition for reality television as well and would be performing on So You Think You Can Dance tonight. Chloe had once told me how she used into acting how well she performed in drama class at Blackwell. And how Chloe actually got to be part of a Shakespeare play called the Tempest at the last minute and performed with her.

Before I went back downstairs to the living room, I noticed I had my Nerf Gun hanging around on my old gun holster I wore back during the fight in Portland. I had plastic foam targets hanging around my attic that I'd use to shoot darts with whenever I played around with my Nerf Gun. I would rather play guitar, but I guess it couldn't to shoot some darts instead before heading downstairs with Chloe. It's Nerf or nothing.

I took the gun out of the holster and walked to my stereo to play some tunes before shooting the hanging foam targets. What to play while shooting some darts?

 **Dark Days - Local Natives**

 **To All of You - Syd Matters**

 **Crosses - Jose Gonzales**

 **Something Good - Alt-J**

 **Youth - Daughter**

I selected 'Dark Days' by Local Natives on my play list to start playing on my stereo and as soon as the music was on, it was time to get my game on shootin' some foam.

"I'm surrounded," I say playing along. "Here they come. Take cover."

I use some boxes and shelves as my cover and take my first shot at a hanging target that spins around once the dart I fire hits it.

"Bullseye!" I express.

Like the salvage yard in Arcadia, with covering walls to add to my arsenal, I get behind every stack of boxes and every row of shelves to hide behind and fire up more target to shoot more targets. Saying boo-yah, take that, eat plastic, gotcha, like a pro, and hella yeah as Chloe would say. And Rachel before me and her who taught her the word which had been Cali thing. Mad Max's kung fu was strong with this one. The force was strong with this one.

With all the shooting skills Chloe taught me in the junkyard and combat skills Rachel once taught me back at her lodge paying off, I was one with the force and the force was with me. For I am Super Max. Savior of Arcadia Bay. Conqueror of Portland. And betrothal to Hella Punk.

 _"Hey, Max!"_ Chloe called from downstairs. _"Are you coming down to eat?"_

"Yeah!" I shout. "Yeah, I'll be right there."

Well, I guess play time's over. Time to head downstairs, eat supper, and watch Rachel and Frank's performance live on stage. I open the hatch to the attic and climb down the ladder to the top floor our penthouse. I walk into our bedroom for a moment before going downstairs with Chloe.

In the bedroom, I take a look at my senior yearbook from Blackwell. So many good memories even with the bad one from that crazy year. Even with a girl I save from falling down thirty feet to ground dropping dead like a pancake as well as killing a hundred guys with a rifle in my hand during an all out assault the campus, it's a year I cannot forget for all the right and wrong reasons.

I could see my class photo on the senior photo between Victoria and Kate. There were a lot of photos of special occasions taken for the yearbook. Such as the Halloween shindig, the Christmas pageant, and even pictures of the school protest after the shooting. As well my welcome home party we had at two whales. Including the group photo of everyone invited.

My favorite picture that made it to the yearbook was the prom photos that were taken for Chloe and I and everyone else. Though Chloe was expelled from campus, I got to be Principal Well's first period assistant after my victory of the Arcadia Bay vs. Max Caulfield case and he allowed Chloe to attend as my chaperone as well as my date. And though Joyce had taken a prom photo of us in our dresses holding hands back at her house in Arcadia, the ones taken at the prom were much better. Ones of us smiling and holding hands with other student patrons in the background. The night to ourselves, the night of our lives. In our beautifully gorgeous prom dresses.

Then there were also my graduation photos for this year. Including the one of the entire class of 2014. As well as photos of us in the courtyards smiling and laughing in our gowns like there's no tomorrow. LA is Rachel's tomorrow, science is Warren's tomorrow, Christianity is Kate's tomorrow, photography is my tomorrow. End of the world, we wouldn't want to do anything else.

I then walk outside the bedroom and into the computer room. First I take a look at my expensive camera I bought for college and Jarvis arts to view some photos I've taken during our road trips out of state. One of us at the Space Needle during our trip to Seattle visiting my parents, one of us in Los Angeles visiting Rachel, Frank, and her family, and one of us during our Christmas vacation to Paris. Wowser, we really need another vacation. Been too long. At least two years since our last.

Then I look at Chloe's copy for the pirate photo in a frame displayed on the desk nicely and well treasured. And then there was my graduation picture framed on the wall that included me, Chloe, my parents, Joyce and David, and even Rachel and Frank. Yet so much more good memories to dwell on in other places of my home.

And then I check Chloe's physics project she had been doing for online College. Even an ex-delinquent and Blackwell dropout like Chloe has a future here in Portland. It appeared to be she had been working on magnetic pendulum balls. This was what she had been working on? I believe she once did a project like this back in the eighth grade of middle with her biological father when he was alive as a science fair project and this was now her college project? No complaint there.

I finally walk downstairs to the living room to eat with Chloe. Sitting on the couch with her laptop listening to Santa Monica Dream by Angus and Julia Stone. She can see and hear me clearly entering the room.

"You were up there a long time," said Chloe.

"Well, I was researching something," I said.

"Oh, is that what we're calling it these days?"

"I was."

"Hey, would you mind grabbing the food? I'm just...wrapping up here. Finishing my physics report."

"Oh yeah. Sure thing."

"Thanks."

"By the way, did you get Rachel's text? About the show?"

"Oh yeah. It'll be on in fifteen minutes now. Just grab the food and may the best LA wannabe win."

"I'd change your vocabulary of wannabe to actually-be. But yeah. I goad on Rachel."

Until now, Chloe is no longer the woman who wants to tell the world to go to hell. Chloe is no longer the woman who wants to drop a bomb on a shit pit and turn it into fucking glass. And Chloe is no longer the young antisocial I once knew her to be from 'that' week and beyond. And until now, Chloe Price is no longer the wounded warrior abandoned in a grim underworld of cruelty and unkindness that took away everybody she ever loved. All her profanity down the incinerator. All her comeuppance atoned for.

Together against all odds, we came out of the bay with scars we carried from the malice we left behind to mend them in our new lives of reconciliation. Keeping the oath we vowed for the past three years to never enter the nastiness of time traveling nonsense. Meaning though I still had my power, I would not use them in a way to fight quantum terrorism. Nor to benefit myself above others. Since then, I never found a reason to save Chloe from a certifiable demise. Not since the storm. Not ever. But without my supernormal phenomena, she would not have outlived her murder in the many tombs from the Blackwell John and so on. Something we can never forget in a trillion years or lifetimes in our case. Ever.

I step into the kitchen to grab the food. We had ordered some PF Chang's to go yesterday and the left were in the fridge, but our bowls of food were on the kitchen counters. I would grab ourselves some Bud Light to drink, but choose Orange Crush instead to stay sober for the day even after a long one. Then grab our bowls of lo mein noodles and take our food and drinks to the living room to eat on the couch. I sit on the couch with bowls in my hands just when Chloe finishes her report.

"And...done," she says closing her laptop and setting it aside. "Okay."

"You finish it?" I ask.

"Yeah, I did."

I hand Chloe her food so we can start eating.

"You know, it's probably too long," she said. "And full of typos, but that's what editors are for, right?"

"Heh," I said.

"God I'm starving."

We start dabbing our forks and chowing on some mein when talking. I was starving too.

"Looks good," I said.

"Mmhmm...so...hww wzz yr dy?" She asked with her mouth full.

"What?"

"Hm?"

"Got none of that."

"Oh, sorry. I'm sorry, how was your day?"

"Oh. It was fine."

"Mmhmm."

"Typical day in paradise. I, ah...I got to show all my work to a bunch of tabloid art journalist we spent thousands of dollars on during presentation today."

"Hmm..."

"Yes."

"At least you finally grew some balls talking to a crowd. Did they think your work was amazing?"

"Oh, I'm sure some of them found my work to be engaging. It was um...'Little Pieces of Time' in full 1080p resolution using DARF...they got to see. Apparently Jefferson called it from light to shadow and from color to chiaroscuro."

"Oh hella lord..."

"So...boring stuff. Tell me about the report."

"Well, it started out as this fluff piece about magnesium in the pendulum, but...I don't think my online professor is gonna like the angle I'm taking because...everyone immediately commented about how rude the noise was. That it was like dinging in their ears like the second you started moving it left and right."

That's when I lost focus on Chloe's words and drifted off into space staring at a portrait of the Arcadian lighthouse. Remember our times gazing the view of the shoreline bordering the Pacific Ocean. Seagulls chirping and whales beaching.

I remember those dead whales marooned on the sand 'that' week that I once believed to be the bequest of my powers until the day came when it was Neo-Chrysalis's doing and not mine. Boats sailing to the docks and fishing on the waterfront. And the sunshine beaming the bay like the kingdom of heaven. I still recall our one last time we sat on the porch deferring the view. Just saying goodbye to our once beloved town. One that would always be ours till the end of time.

"Ah!" I squirm being poked with a fork.

Chloe resumed my attention back to her.

"What?" I say.

"Where are you?" She asks.

"I'm in...here being stabbed with a fork."

"Oh really?"

"What? Just keep going. It was - it was interesting."

"Oh?"

"Yeah."

"Interesting. What's my report about?"

"What? This one?"

"Mm-hmm."

"Ah...the magnesium of...of...ah, pendulum. And - and the noise. And how it - it can, ah...be annoying. And...people can't focus."

"Wowser."

"Alright, I'm sorry."

"No, it was valiant. That was really-"

"I was in the ballpark, right?"

"In a different state. But yeah, you were in a ballpark."

I laugh. Then Chloe brings up something I never like to bring up."

"Jarvis asked you about that Vancouver job again," she said.

"Jarvis always asks me about the Vancouver job," I said.

"Look, Max. I really think you should take it."

"You know what, I don't want it. Really. I mean, he doesn't have the permits. And we agreed we're not gonna take that kind of work anymore. It's just not worth it."

"Okay, but...it...it doesn't sound that risky. Alright, if it's just the permits-"

"No way."

"You can call your parents."

I sigh.

"You haven't seen them in what, two years?"

"Chloe, look, can we please drop this."

"Okay, I just don't want you to not take it because of me."

"I'm not taking it because of me, okay?"

I set my food down on the table in grief. I couldn't accept the Everyday Heroes contest, even if I did in another reality, and I couldn't accept the Vancouver job. Where is your thinking cap when you need one, Max? Even now in your twenties, you're going from Super Max to Zero Max. I'm certainly not mooching off my parents for this kind of job either.

"I appreciate the gesture," I continue. "It's just...sigh."

Then Chloe got off the couch and carried our empty bowls to do the dishes.

"I'm gonna go ahead and do the dishes," she said.

I hold her elbow to pause her.

"Stop, I'll do them," I said.

"You did them last night-"

"No, you cocked. I clean. It's fine."

"I mean...at least - at least, uh, let m - let me try to earn it or - or something. Let me, uh...bet you for it."

"You'll bet me for it?"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know what, tell you what. Rachel's performance is coming on in a few minutes and I say we change the channel to where So You Think You Can Dance is on and my bet is that Rachel and Frank are gonna get could comments from the judges. If they do, you do the dishes. If not, I'll do them."

"You think they're gonna get great comments?"

"Yeah, I think you're scared now."

"Say what you will about the ex-Blackwell princess. You don't even know how well they're gonna perform."

"Well neither do you. So I say may the odds be ever in our favor and start watching."

"Oh, really?"

"So what do you say, chicken? Is it a bet?"

I make chicken noises at Chloe to taunt her into doing the bet and she takes it.

"Oh wowser. Okay, Mad Max. Let's watch."

Chloe sets the bowls down back on the table, grabs the remote, and turns of the TV to watch Rachel and Frank's So You Think You Can Dance performance. Once the channel is changed, we're just in time to see the opening titles of the show on and a crowd on live television applauding and chanting at the stage hostess Cat Deeley. Also where the three judges, Nigel Lythgoe, Mary Murphy, and Vanessa Hudgens sit at there table in front of the stage.

Now we're hyped to see Rachel's dreams be televised on reality TV. Tonight will determine if her and Frank make it to the top 10 dancers for the finals by score. The couple would be on in any minute as the hostess spoke in front of the camera with her microphone on.

 _"Welcome back to 'So You Think You Can Dance',"_ said Cat the hostess with a smile. _"Up next we have two dancers from California performing live in Vancouver. Can they make it to the top ten finals or will they utterly flop? Please welcome, Francis Bowers and Rachel Amber!"_

 **I'm Only Joking - KONGOS**

And there they are. Emerging from behind stage from two side ready to face the music. The music being played was 'I'm Only Joking' by KONGOS. Rachel made her way in the flesh on the left side of the stage wearing a blue dress and high heels. Then Frank stepped in from the right side of the stage wearing a black fedora and jacket. They both shined on stage with they're dancing clothes on approaching each other like lions mating. This is where the fun began.

As the first set of lyrics was on, the two of them began performing some snazzy dance moves on camera. The two of them held hands, twirled around holding hands, and spread they're arms out like stars in the sky. Now things were getting breathtaking.

 _There is a song  
You're trembling to its tune  
At the request of the moon_

 _Licking her chops  
She looks at the lunatics  
She needs another fix_

 _I'm only joking  
And I don't believe a thing I've said  
What are you smoking  
I'm just to fuck with your head  
Only a crazy little thing I read_

 _I'm only joking  
And I don't believe a thing I've said  
What are you smoking  
I'm just to fuck with your head  
Only a crazy little thing I read  
Only a crazy little thing I read_

Our eyebrows were raised and our jaws were dropped by the well choreographed dance moved Rachel and Frank had been showing off on live television. I wonder how her parents must think of their daughter becoming a dancing star of TV. Frank swung his girlfriend around like a merry-go-round up in the air with his hands. Then he held Rachel by his one hand on her arm as she leaned her neck against the other like a true couple and with a rose in his mouth. Wowser.

 _The earth is alive  
And man is a parasite  
And heavenly bodies make us fight_

 _I'm only joking  
And I don't believe a thing I've said  
What are you smoking  
I'm just to fuck with your head  
Only a crazy little thing I read_

 _I'm only joking  
And I don't believe a thing I've said_

 _I'm only joking  
And I don't believe a thing I've said  
What are you smoking  
I'm just to fuck with your head  
Only a crazy little thing I read  
Only a crazy little thing I read_

Oh my dog. Frank did not just do that. A rose in his mouth? I guess he puts more thins in his mouth than maurajuana. At last, comes the Amberbowers couple at their best. The two bust some moves individually until the main event approaches. Frank becomes Patrick Swazye and Rachel becomes Jennifer Grey in Dirty Dancing as Rachel runs up to her boyfriend and hops like a bunny for him to catch her in his arms and spread her limps our like a flamingo. Our faces were awed extremely. They were bound to get all tens.

 _There is a song  
You're trembling to its tune  
At the request of the moon_

 _Licking her chops  
She looks at the lunatics  
She needs another fix_

 _I'm only joking (I'm only joking)  
I don't believe a thing I've said  
What are you smoking  
I'm just to fuck with your head  
Only a crazy little thing I read_

 _I'm only joking  
And I don't believe a thing I've said  
What are you smoking  
I'm just to fuck with your head  
Only a crazy little thing I read_

 _I'm only joking  
And I don't believe a thing I've said  
What are you smoking  
I'm just to fuck with your head  
Only a crazy little thing I read  
Only a crazy little thing I read_

As their grand finale when the final lyrics played and the song ended, Rachel was held by Frank's arms again, put the rose in her mouth, and took it out of her mouth to kiss her fingers and spread some sugar in front of the camera. The love went out to us watching as well as her mother and father who must be watching as well.

We could not endure what we had seen on screen. For the first time since Rachel's dream to become a star all began in Arcadia Bay, it was now the reality she'd never imagined would be. Now to wait on those scores. But first, the show hostess walked up next to them to interview them on screen.

Cat had asked the two what inspired them to be here and how much they practiced to make it this far. Rachel said she started as a high school LA wannabe girl who dreamed of this day since. Frank said he used to be a piece of trailer trash and now he's superstar living a life with his profound prodigy in Malibu.

Then the judges started talking to comment some feedback on their performance. Nygel said it was above average. Mary said they had spent time working hard to be here tonight. Vanessa said their perfomance to her back to her High School Musical days, but still needed work and dissed them a little. That's when the camera cut back to Cat, Rachel, and Frank to remind viewers to vote for them via phone number or text if liked using a number to call or word to text shown on screen. Which is exactly we needed to now.

"Oh come on," I said. "For someone who was in High School Musical, Vanessa clearly liked it and only dissed them for ripping it off."

"You asked for it," said Chloe.

"You gotta be kidding me. It's usual Nygel who's the Simon Cowell of this show. Not her. They practically had it."

"At least we can still vote for them on our phones right now. C'mon, double or nothing. My truck can really use a good cleaning."

"Really? Really, you're gonna start the smack talk now?"

"Yeah. There's otherwise the top tens. Best out of two?"

"Wowser."

"We can wait till then to start washing the dishes."

"You know - you know, just keep talking. Keep talking."

"What are you gonna do?"

"I'm - I'm warning you."

"What are you gonna do?"

"I'm warning you."

"In real life, what can you do? Show me."

"Hey, I'm telling you-"

"What can you do in real life?"

"I'm telling you. What do you think about that, huh?"

I hump over Chloe and tickle her bit as she laughs away. Like she did to me in my bedroom four years ago at my house in Seattle. Then she caresses her hand on my cheek when she calms.

"Hey, are you happy?" Chloe asked.

"Yeah, of course." I reply. "You?"

Chloe scoffed.

"Um..." she says.

"Um?" I frown. "Really?"

Chloe chuckles.

"C'mere," she said.

I kiss the girl of my life on the couch as I lean down over her. Together, the young women who has completed me and made me whole since I was eight years old make out and make love on the sofa. The relationship of ours that began on a winter as toddlers, to teens of Blackwell, to now, just grew and grew. No matter what the stakes were. No matter what faults we had taken. There was nothing and no one left to conspire against us now.

Just maybe.


	9. The Great Caulfield Reunion

Chapter 9 The Great Caulfield Reunion

Max \- Age 21 (POV)

Alex \- Age 25

July 4th, 2017

6:01 AM

Portland, Oregon

Jarvis Arts Center

I walk early in the morning for work around five-ish for and early morning shift. Jarvis's orders. Who called last night to come in early to stamp some papers in his office. Ran a little late to pick up a McMuffin to eat for breakfast at a McDonald's drive-through. It wasn't until six-ish when walked into the building and marched into the office to file and stamp papers for him. Jarvis had given me a spare key to the art building whenever I need to get in to unlock the door myself or lock the door for him when closing.

The building itself was a nice place to work at. There was not only a dark room to work in with other employees/photographers/artist, but also a nice looking gallery for customers to walk around in between hours. Like the Everyday Heroes gallery in San Francisco I once walked around at in the reality I submitted the photo of my dorm winning the contest. Best of both worlds goes to San Fran and Portland.

Stamping papers on Jarvis's desk wasn't the hardest and most boring job in the world, but prefer to do more dark room work like I normally come here to do than paperwork in the office. Just saying.

As I'm stamping, filing, and signing the last of the papers, a knock was heard on the door to the office. A customer already, huh? Guess that's what I get for leaving the door unlocked before opening. And I knew it wouldn't be Jarvis since he told me on the phone he wouldn't arrive till seven.

"We're not open yet!" I call out.

Then another knock was heard. I don't know how badly this customer wants to see my artistic etiquette, but I'm sure I left the sign saying 'closed' even when leaving the door open.

"We're closed!" I shout.

The second wasn't enough and the third time knocking wasn't a charm. This must be more than just a customer to ignore whoever's knocking. Someone very important to just let out. It had better been worth leaving my post waking up this early in the morning for work.

"C'mon," I mutter. "Alright, I'm coming, I'm coming! Asshole."

I get off the chair and march to the door to answer it. I open the door to see a young woman with short black hair wearing a cargo jacket looking at some of the portraits in the gallery.

"Yeah, can I help you?" I ask the young that looks to be in her twenties.

"Yeah, I'm uh...", she began as she turned around.

As soon as she turns around, I freeze frame stone cold on my feet and my pace turning pale. I recognized this girl's face. She had the same freckled face and ocean blue eyes I have. Then I know who it is. Someone who I thought I lost a long time ago. Longer now than it seems. It was the girl I once watched die before my eyes in a Seattle sewer pipe months before watching Chloe die in the restroom.

"Looking for my little cousin," she continued. "She's about your height, little bit leaner, definitely less freckles on the cheeks."

It was her. The one person who had been the closest of my family I had. The one person that had been in Chloe's footsteps as Rachel had been in mine. The one person that made me happy far away from the bay. This was her.

"Alex?" I spit out.

"It's good to see you again, Max," said Alex.

Wowser, what do I do? Should I drop a tear? Should I press my hand on my lip. Should I run up to her and give her tight hug? You know what, I do all of the above all at once.

"Oh my god, Alex!" I cry.

"Whoa! Alright, alright," she says calming me as I give her nice big hug. "Take it easy. Take it easy."

Take it easy? I thought she had been dead for five years and she has the nerve to tell me to take it easy? I must be dreaming. I'm about to give her the same reaction Chloe gave Rachel the day she returned out of nowhere on the Price lawn. Until I decide to give her a more commendable reaction. We smile for a brief second after our hug.

"How?" I ask crying a little. "I thought you - I saw you get shot!"

"Yes, you did," she admits, removing the corner of the shirt to show her bullet scars. "Right...there..."

"Jesus."

"My dad had found me washed up on a beachfront in Tacoma. Took me to the hospital unconscious. The doctors said I was under coma for eight months from drowning in the current and blood loss. Luckily the bullets went though my skin and my wounds weren't entirely fatal. When I woke up on my hospital bed, they had already patched me up in the emergency room during surgery. By the time I woke up next to your uncle, you had already left back to Arcadia Bay."

"Yeah, but we...my parents, Uncle Bryan, they made calls. We checked everywhere. We gave you a funeral. Everything I heard from the police when my parents and Uncle Bryan reported you missing...they eventually presumed you dead and gave up on the case."

"Max, we broke into a museum. I'm kinda glad the police didn't find me. Otherwise, I'd go to jail. I'm just glad your not in jail either."

"I almost was. Even Fernando and Kristen. Until the principal dropped the charges for us when the police discovered our break in and arrested us. Jesus, Alex, I...if I'd had known, I swear to you I would've come af-"

"You would've come back. I know, Max. I know. What's important now though is that I'm alive."

I take a moment to breathe. The prodigal cousin that has returned to my life thrives my acceptance for Alex being alive and well. Where has she been all these years if she had been alive this entire time since I left Seattle for Arcadia? First Rachel comes back into Chloe's life believing she had died in that salvage yard, now Alex returns before my vista believing she had died in that sewer. Just like Rachel before her, she had a lot to explain for.

"Hey, hey," said Alex snapping her fingers to grasp my attention. "You still with me?"

"Yeah," I reply. "I need some air."

I can't believe Alex was my cousin five years ago. And here I though William would majestically return from the dead out of thin air next. Like Rachel before her, the damage had already been done to Chloe who had accepted her fate during the six months between the storm and the end of time. My acceptance in Alex's fate did not differ. But unlike Chloe and Rachel, I'm not coming at Alex telling her that she doesn't get to just come back into my life after so long. I somehow take the more tolerating approach.

My resurrected cousin and I step outside through the back door of the art building for some fresh air. I decide to take a seat with her on porch that overviewed the Willamette River. It was still dark outside, but the sun had rising to the luminous golden hour lighting the sky in purple and blue. I turn around to my cousin walking with her with a proud smile.

"You're not gonna pass out on me or nothing, are you?" Alex asked.

"I...I just might," I admit. "It's a lot to digest, you know?"

Alex smokes a cigarette as we begin to sit down. Now to start playing Q&A with her about how she still lives.

"Where...where have you been all these years?" I start asking. "If you've been alive this whole time, why didn't you come find me sooner? How'd you even get here? Find me?"

"Alright, alright, slow down," she says. "Okay? Have a seat."

I take a seat next to her on the porch. Glancing over the view as she starts talking.

"I want to hear about you, huh?" She asked.

"Me?" I question.

"Yeah."

"What's to tell?"

"Well, I called some of the old contacts. They tell me some pretty crazy ass stories."

"Jesus, what crazy stories?"

"A girl who can rewind time. A girl who saved another girl from a dorm building roof at Blackwell. Saw the video. A girl who won the Arcadia Bay Versus Max Caulfield case. Saw the news. A girl who saved Portland from the end of the world on a Chrysalis tower. That actually happened?"

"Yeah, that ah...that actually happened."

"C'mon, man, what did I miss?"

"Jesus, Alex, where do I start?"

"Start with the best part."

 **X/SQUARE/LM - I SAVED CHLOE**

 **B/CIRCLE/RM - I SURVIVED THE STORM**

 **Y/TRIANGLE/MM - I STOPPED CROSBY**

"Okay, um...do you still remember Chloe from Arcadia Bay?" I begin.

"Yeah, sure," she said.

"Okay, about my rewind powers that you must've heard of, this is how I got them."

"I'm listening."

"So I'm there minding my own business at Blackwell. Moping and doping about not winning some stupid Everyday Heroes contest in San Fran. Doubting myself I'm the shittiest photographer ever over a shitty photo I tried to submit. Then I walk into the bathroom to tear the photo and pout about it and this is what happens."

"Go on."

"A blue butterfly flies into the room and I walk over to it to snap a photo of it. Then this rich kid named Nathan barges into the room as I hide behind the stalls and it just so happens my best friend Chloe storms inside with him."

"Really?"

"Except that I don't recognize her look she changed since years back. The two of them start a fight about money and drugs and out of nowhere Nathan pulls a gun on her and inadvertently shoots her in the gut."

"You shittin' me?"

"And that's when my power first manifests and activates to save Chloe from getting herself killed."

"Tell me more."

I spend the next hour talking to Alex and telling her the entire story between me and Chloe. Sparing no detail from 'that' one week that would've never happened without my power all the way to the conquest in Portland. I start with the Monday Chloe and I were together again when the mysterious snow had fallen over the bay to the Friday I picked my poison trading one tragedy for another. I also tell her about how my art teacher became an artistic pedophile who exploited the innocence of young girls. How he exploited Rachel, how he exploited Kate, how he exploited me.

Even go as far as to bringing up the Blackwell shooting starting a war with Chrysalis and the Prescotts as well as the trial I had won thanks to the dauntlessness of Rachel and Chloe. I do tell her about Rachel's revenant and how Chrysalis brought her back indeed. With a little info of how she worked as an agent to stop the El Eterno conflict in Bolivia. I finally tell Alex about the skirmish in Portland we barely survived just to stop Crosby and his plan to undermine the world into a living heaven that turned out to be one hell of a place. Everything about the Triple 4 attack. And then last but least, how we all lived happily ever after leaving the bay to start our new lives to together in a shiny new era. LA for Rachel. Portland for me.

* * *

"I mean what can I say?" I say finishing my story for the past hour. "Another maniacal egomaniac stopped once and for all, and uh...we made it out alive...barely."

"Unbelievable," said Alex.

"Yeah, yeah it was. I wish you could've been there."

"No, it's literally unbelievable. You tell me you stumble upon rich kids with guns, religious girls on roofs, alternate realities through photo traveling, dark rooms by Mr. Jefferson, tornados in Arcadia Bay, school masquerades in Blackwell, a court case prosecuting your powers, and then a terrorist invasion here in Portland orchestrated by Mr. Crosby."

"Yeah, well, it's the story of my life I guess. But ya know, I managed to capsule some good memories on the bay since Chloe and I were kids."

"Hmm."

"Paid of the car, the apartment, college tuition, everything."

"You still owe me your powers."

"What?"

"Your powers. You still need to show me what you can do with them."

"Oh...oh really? Do I?"

"Yes, you do. I'm your cousin and I'd like to see what you can do with them."

"Oh, well, I'm sorry, Alex. But I don't really use my powers as often as I used to and I promised Chloe I wouldn't."

"C'mon, Max. You owe me after all these years as much as I owe you one. Just one more favor and I promise I'll tell you my secret why I've been away for so long."

Well, Alex is right. She is still my cousin and I guess I owe to her to show my powers. Like that Tuesday at the diner when I first showed Chloe them. Here goes nothing.

"Alright then," I said. "Here it goes. First, empty your pockets."

"My pockets?" Alex asked.

"Yes, your pockets. Empty them so I can memorize every detail."

"Okay. If this is about your powers, no problemo."

Alex empties her pockets. She takes out her journal and pencil, car keys with a golden idol key chain, some change of a few cents, and a passport. I analyze Alex's belongings carefully just as I did with Chloe's four years ago.

The journal was old and raggedy with a compass sticker, a cougar sticker, and a strip of paper the reads: **Diary of Alex Caulfield**.

The car keys had a Honda logo which must've belonged to a Honda Civic and the key chain with the golden idol was Indiana Jones themed. Alex was really into those movies except for Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

There were two quarters, three dimes, two nickels, and three pennies as part of Alex's change. Meaning she had ninety-three cents in her pocket.

Her passport showed her identification, age, sex, place of birth, date of birth, and address. Also with a plane ticket to Portland and the time she departed.

Now that I've memorized all the details, it was time to rewind. I raise my hand to rewind a few seconds back to where Alex asked to demonstrate my power. Once I finish rewinding, Alex once again asked me to showcase my power.

"Okay, Alex," I begin. "What if I can tell you right now what in your pockets and all the details with it."

"What's in my pockets?" She wondered. "How would you know what's in them?"

"Listen carefully, and you'll see. You have your diary, your car keys, some change, and your passport in your pockets right now."

"I do? I mean, I do actually. What's on my diary?"

"Your diary has stickers of a compass and a cougar with a strip of paper taped on that reads: Diary of Alex Caulfield on it."

"Okay, how 'bout my keys?"

"Your keys has a Honda logo. Which I'm only assuming your driving a civic. You also have an Indiana Jones Golden Idol key chain attached. Am I right?"

"That's...right, Max. How 'bout my change? How much do I have?"

"You have at least ninety-three cents in your pockets. Two quarters and nickels. Three dimes and pennies."

"Damn, you know a lot. Now how 'bout my passport? What do you know about that?"

"Your passport identifies you as Alexis Cynthia Caulfield. Age twenty-five. Sex female. Born in Tacoma, Washington on May 5th, 1992. Address 16th Aurora Drive. Plus, there's the plane ticket. You departed at 2:30 AM this morning."

"Wowser, you know everything! How - how did you know? Did - did you just use your powers or something?"

"I sure did, Alex. I sure did."

I had forget that Alex herself had actually taught that word 'wowser' years back when we were kids. Just like how Rachel taught Chloe the word 'hella'. Best of both worlds once again goes to Alex and Rachel. The two already have something in common. They both had different influences on us and made us happy when it wasn't Chloe and me anymore throughout those fives years away from each other.

"Is there anything else you can do with your powers, Super Max? I'd really like to know."

Hmm, what else can you do with your powers, Max? Alex would really want to know. I remember years back in that diner when I had to foresee the future for Chloe. From the coffee spill, to the police dispatch, to Justin and Trevor fighting, to the cockroach in the jukebox. Could I do the same here outdoor on this porch by the river? But how?

The first foreseeable thing that meets the eye is a fishing boat off in the distance floating on the Willamette River. One of the fishermen on board accidentally drops a load overboard. Another one of the fishermen bickers about the accident complaining that they now have to dive underwater to reach it.

Suddenly, a dog runs into our presence scarring a flock of pigeons away that had been feeding off of garbage on the ground. The owner of the dog approaches to catch his dog and apologize to us.

Next thing we know, a very loud siren was heard wailing in the distance as an ambulance was revealed to be racing across the street from the art building.

Last but not least, an air blimp flying thirty thousand feet in the air displaying a giant electronic ad on it's ballonet. It was a Happy Fourth of July ad with Uncle Sam projected with sound effects echoing on monotone speakers. Brought to us in part by Chrysalis. There and back again."

"Well, I'm waiting," said Alex.

Without further or do, I be kind to rewind just to inform Alex of the foreseen future. I rewind far enough to the point where Alex had asked about another demonstration of my power and stop rewinding right where I need to. Time to do some fortune telling.

"Alright, Alex. Get ready for this. I can see the future and predict it right. Ready?"

"I'm listening."

"First, a fisherman on a boat will accidentally drop his load overboard on one of those boats."

"And?"

"Next, A dog will run up hear to scare those pigeons away and it's own will come get him."

"And?"

"Then, an ambulance will start racing across the street passed the art building."

"And?"

"And then last but not least, an airship up in sky will turn on a forth of July ad of Uncle Sam. Brought to us in part by Chrysalis. There and back again."

As the future events proceed, they come as predicted. First comes the fishing boat, then comes the dog, next comes the ambulance, and last comes the airship. I fell like I'm eighteen again. I haven't necessarily demonstrated my powers like this since. I feel as if history has repeated itself between Alex and I. Just like Chloe before her. Proving the existence of my power to Alex like this since that Tuesday at Two Whale's. Alex was as amazed and impressed as Chloe had once been from my first impressions.

"Holy shit, Max," she chuckled. "So the stories are true. You really do have time powers after all, don't you?! I pledge allegiance to Max and the power for which she stands!"

"Oh, you sound just like Chloe, Alex," I chuckle with her. "You sound just like her - Holy shit, Chloe! Alex, we're together. I can't believe - Chloe, from Arcadia Bay? She's my girlfriend now. You gotta come meet her. Tonight, dinner. At my place, you're coming to dinner. I can tell her all about you. Shit, I gotta tell her all about you."

Here we go again, Max. No rest for the wicked when it comes to ties that bind. How can you keep your own cousin a secret from Chloe for this long? She had seen Alex before, but that was years ago. Back when William was still stepping on the earth. By now, she may not remember my cousin from way back then. Before Alex could agree to come, she gets off the porch walks up to the railing by the river.

"Max...I'm in a lot of trouble here," begins Alex.

"What?" I ask, getting off the porch to speak by the railing next to her. "What are you talking about? What kind of trouble?"

"Do you remember Joanna Prescott? Our high school principle back in Seattle? Does she still ring a bell to you?"

"Yeah, I remember her. Wait, Prescott? Joanna?"

"Mm-hmm."

"Hold on, you're - you're not tell me what I think you're telling me, are you?"

"Can't say I'm not. I'd be lying if I said she wasn't related to those Prescotts from Arcadia Bay. She is."

"She is? What are you saying? What are you telling me?"

"It's funny story, but umm...I'm not sure if you recall, but she's friends with my dad. From what I now, Nathan Prescott is her late nephew. Sean Prescott is her late brother. If I tell you this, you didn't hear it from me. Got it?"

"Okay, why so serious? Why are you talking like your danger or something?"

"Sigh, Max, I'm gonna tell you secret. A secret I've come many miles to tell you and you can't share with anyone. And I mean 'anyone'! Understood?"

"Alright, I understand. What is it?"

"Joanna is leading some secret shadow cult. A secret organizational society of some kind. One that enlist families of some sacred influence. Including the Prescotts. They call themselves the Herd of Whales."

"The Herd of Whales?"

"Yeah. Rumor has it, they had been involved with some terrorist activity under Neo-Chrysalis and CDF operations. The Continuum Defense Front? Ring a bell?"

"Yeah, I think everyone knows. They're the ones fighting some kind of war with Chrysalis if I'm right."

"Right. Here's the catch. Rumors between them and the Herd of Whales is that they're planning some kind of attack on this country and other countries around the globe for reasons unknown. However, your Uncle Bryan and I have been making conspiracies that could turn the tide of the war between Chrysalis and CDF. It's linked to a conquest lead by one of the Prescott ancestors back when the first world war broke out. Ezra Prescott. Professor Ezra Prescott. Remember the man Joanna once told us?"

"I think so. What's that got to do with it?"

"Well, I guess this where I tell you. Where I starting explaining why I've come back just now. So this is the story."


	10. Ezra Prescott

Chapter 10 Ezra Prescott

Ezra \- Age 46 (POV)

Jeremiah \- Age 44

June 14th, 1917

8:09 AM

German Concentration Camp

Meridian Prime

 **100 years earlier...**

I am imprisoned in my cell with my companion Jeremiah. Taken prisoner inside the German concentration camp as a prisoner of war during an ambush on the path to the lost city of High Providence. Where we were to find the ark of genesis to help our country win this war to end all wars. A war that would repeat history. A war known as the eternity war. A war that America and Britain was losing.

The Germans were on the verge of winning this war as we were locked up like animals and they in the meanwhile were coming closer to the ark than we ever could. But even now as the enemy line nears the x that marks the spot, there may be hope for us to win this war yet.

"Are you not reading tonight, Ezra?" Jeremiah asked making pull ups.

"Jeremiah, come here," I say holding onto the bar of our cell.

Jeremiah get up to come up close and talk.

"Listen," I say. "The guards. They're singing."

"Aye, well, they're probably drunk," said Jeremiah.

"Perhaps. But they are content. How can they be content with their small lives? Their miserable jobs?"

"Well, they may have families to go home to as anyone would. What do we have? Nothing, that's what."

"We have ambition."

"I've heard that word in the many times since this perilous crusade began."

"And when we get out of here, that ambition will take us to a place these vermin have no clue what they're walking into."

"Not that we ever knew what we would walk into either. I will not commend to your optimism."

Jeremiah laid back on the bed of our cell as I kept holding onto my imminent freedom I knew was coming. Even if Jeremiah did not believe it was.

"What will you do when you get out of here, Jeremiah?" I ask.

Jeremiah chuckled.

"That's if we get out of here," he said. "I'm sure you can imagine."

"I can. But I want to hear you say it."

"I will find the greatest time ark of all time. Which I am certain you've grown tired of hearing about by now."

"Oh no. The tale of King Arthur and the order of Saint Loomis has been bestowed upon my family's lineage for centuries. And has become a sweet lullaby for me. Do you really think we can just stop now after all this time?"

"Given the circumstances? Absolutely not."

"Ambition. What is that Arthur quote?"

"Till the high god behold it from beyond and enter it. And make it beautiful."

"I like how he thinks."

And finally, our freedom arrives. The sound of bang to the door to our cell block with my men and allies arriving to the rescue.

"What in hell was that?" Jeremiah jerked.

"The opportunity of a lifetime," I say.

It was my brother Martin and Captain Carter with a squad of his men closing in and arriving in the nick of time to our cell. At last.

"Ezra, thank heavens you're safe," said Martin.

"Professor Prescott, a pleasure seeing you here," said Carter.

"Let's get out of here," I tell the captain as he unlocks the cell door.

"We need to go," said Martin. "Before the guards catch on."

The captain lends me a pistol to fight with. For there will be many guards to shoot past in our escape. Martin, Carter, and the rest of our rescuers had arms to defend themselves with as well. We would be needing them too.

"Jeremiah, are you ready to seek our fortune?" I ask my trustee.

"Yes, indeed," he says.

I throw him his gun to use to fight our way out of here before we exit the cell.

"Come on, let's move," I say.

We walk out of our cell with out rescuers that include my young sibling and the captain with couple of his platoon. March down the cell block to the exit. There is commotion of other prisoners of war hollering and chanting inside their cells on our block begging to be freed as well. And they will soon. Once the second phase of the escape plan is in motion.

Since I had been leading this expedition and conquest to the Ark of Genesis, I too was a soldier of America and our Britain allies and Captain Carter allowed me to take point and give the orders when need be.

"Holy shite," said Jeremiah.

"Are the others in position?" I asked Carter.

"On they're way," replied Carter. "Everything going according to plan."

"Fantastic."

As we race across the halls past our cellblock leaving the prisoners behinds, Jeremiah began to wonder how I had this planned. I too was feeling remorse for their freedom, but only after phase two was accomplished.

"How long have you had this planned?" Jeremiah asked.

"Since the moment I set foot in this place," I answer. "Keep up, Jeremiah. We're going to have to move quickly."

"Holy shite," said Jeremiah staring at bodies of guard Carter's men had killed in halls.

We had made it to the security room by the cellblock exit where the cell controls were located. Martin and Carter stood their positions with the other American/Britain troops in attack formation. My brother and the captain stood between the exit and our soldiers stood guard in front of the door ready to attack the next rooms.

German guards had laid down on the floor shot and killed like rabbits as a wounded guard curled up by a corner prayed for mercy. The only mercy I could offer was a merciful death.

"Stück Scheiße! (Piece of shit!)," the guard cried.

"Take care of the door," I tell a friendly soldier.

I walk up to the wounded guard to silence the life of him.

"Du wirst niemals lebend hier weggehen! (You will never leave here alive!)" He cried.

"Schweigen. (Silence.)", I say.

Then I pull the trigger of my pistol and to put the misery out of him.

"Jesus," said Jeremiah.

"These men are sadistic," I said. "We're doing the world a favor, eh?

I take the guard's pistol and hand it over to Jeremiah for him to use.

"Here, you'll need this," I tell him.

He takes the gun from my hand and now had something to defend with.

"You remember how to use it?" I ask.

"Yeah, it'll come back to me," said Jeremiah.

"Open all the doors," I tell the soldier behind the controls.

"Ezra, you do that and you'll start a bloody riot," said Martin.

"Exactly," I chuckle. "Captain, is Ezekiel out there waiting for us?"

"Aye, Professor," said Carter. "He's out there now with the other half of my men awaiting our window. Let's not keep him waiting long."

"Do it," I tell the soldier. "Stay close, Jeremiah."

As soon as the friendly soldier pulls the lever opening every cell in the POW camp and releasing every prisoner to began the riot as our escape fodder, the alarm is sounded with red lights strobing and guards prompted on high alert. Every journey begins with a bang and everyone will be escaping this hell pit now. Even if they die attempting.

Martin and Carter help us open the doors to start running and gunning through the halls. We could see prisoner running across the halls only to be slain by bullets from automatic rifles as they drop dead on the floor in front of us. Then we shoot the guards who killed the prisoners up front as we corner them in they're path. I tell Jeremiah to stay close to us as we push forward to the next room.

The next room is another cell block with even more guards tempting to shoot us in our path. Guards with rifles are posted on every corner from the balconies and the floor we walk through. Every one of us find cover to avoiding the flying bullets.

"This is madness!" Jeremiah shouted.

I laugh.

"We're going to need to earn our freedom," I say.

A spotlight in the room shines across the block that almost blinds us from firing. But search light in the room do not subdue us to freedom We keep pushing forward and kill every last german vermin on sight. The ones who think they've won, but haven't won. Not unless we fulfill our victory to the ark first.

Fire was being lit on the block and prisoners were being thrown off the balconies like rodents. Like animals tormented by other animals. These prisoners were fighters, but to no avail. It would only be up to us make up for our avail to freedom and victory for this war to be won against the germans. And we could not do that if our escape was to no avail and neither succeeding our conquest to the ark of genesis.

Every german guard we killed was every step to our avail. We had all cleared out the next block and proceeded through the prison as planned. Then stopped in another room to call in our next phase.

"You see?" I ask Jeremiah. "The plan is working."

"Indeed, I see," said Jeremiah. "So now what?"

Captain Carter radioed in Ezekiel to inform him and his other band of men of our position.

"We are in position," he called in. "They are ready."

 _"Yes, look for where to cover,"_ said Ezekiel on the radio.

"Jeremiah, get behind something," I order him.

"What? Why?"

"Just do it."

All of us take cover behind something as an explosion burst open a brick wall and dust and rubble sprouts across the room. It had been set off by dynamite Ezekiel and his group set for us before we were freed. Jeremiah coughs a little and the explosion almost deafened him since he was the closest to it. The hole in the wall gave us a shortcut outdoors to escape the prison.

"Are you alright, Jeremiah?" I ask.

"Yeah...I'm fine," he replies. "I'll live."

Once we walk through the hole and out into the open sun, Jeremiah's eldest brother Ezekiel had been there setting off the explosion and waiting for us to come through and escape with him.

"Jeremiah, thank goodness you're alright!" Ezekiel shouted.

"Ezekiel, aren't you one for sore eyes!" Jeremiah shouted back.

"Professor Prescott, fitting to see you're okay as well."

"We are fine," I tell Ezekiel.

"Understood, follow me. The trucks are on the way."

"Very well. Let's move out."

We all cut through the outdoor steam pipeways to escape the prison. There were still guards onto us as they fired they're rifles from the balconies. We all run and gun taking a few casualties from some of our men, but push foward to mourn them another day. I tell Jeremiah and my younger brother Martin run as quick as they could as Carter, Ezekiel, and I take point.

Then suddenly, a guard drop down on Jeremiah pinning him to the wall and attacking him with his bare fist and hands. I run after Jeremiah and his attacker and shoot the assailant direct in the face in my defense for my compatriot. Then tell him to keep moving foward.

We walk up a flight of stairs to high ground are there are more guards to shoot back at. Once we do away with the gaurds on the steps and push upward on the steps, the stairs take us to a chain linked fense with barbwire we all must hop over. As soon as every one of us mantles over the fense through a gap with no sharp wire, we enter an area where the entirety is light on fire and a machine turret is posted on a tower twelve-o-clock high.

"The turret! Watch out for the turret!" Carter warned.

"Shite!" Jeremiah cried.

Everyone takes cover from the turret fire even with a few casualties from more of our men. We were getting closer to our escape and our ticket to freedom was to destroy the parasitic turret tower.

"What in hell do we do now?!" Martin cried.

"Keep moving up!" I order.

Neither one of us had good cover. The calibration of the turret bullets was strong enough to penetrate through the concrete and brick stacks we would use for cover. Our technique of advancing towards the tower was waiting for the turrent to fire in an opposite direction from one of us and run to further cover.

As we kept up the technique, there was more pressure to be had than just the gun on the tower. More german troopers had been spreading more heat like a wildfire. The odds of survival were reduced a dozen to one.

"We're not gonna make it!" Ezekiel hollered.

"Keep shooting!" I order.

We made it to the farthest front of the tower with a few enemy soldiers taken out, but still pinned down from the turrent. Our reinforcements should be here in any second now as planned.

"Shite, I'm pinned down!" Jeremiah yelled.

"Just hold on!" I shout. "Patience, Jeremiah!"

Suddently a rocket fired from one of the balconies between us. It had been bazooka fire. Our reinforcements made themselves perfect timing for us before getting slaughtered in this onslaught in the prison. Then another rocket was fired from the other balcony destroying the tower and ridding of the turrent gunner for good. We were saved at last. I laugh out loud.

"You see?" I ask Jeremiah. "No time to catch you breath. Move it!"

"The trucks are on the way!" Ezekiel shouted.

"Don't stop!" I shout.

Finally, we make it to the front gate where our trucks would be waiting for us. There were still germans after us, but we needed to press foward. We could not stop for anything.

"They're everywhere!" Martin shouted.

"Don't bother with them!" I order. "Keep running!"

"Stoppe sie! (Stop them!)" A german guard ordered from behind us.

We still had our demolition enforcements with us who took care of a few dozen german with their rocket weapons. All cover us thanks to Carter. At last, our escape vehicles had arrived. A convoy of three liberty trucks had parked by the gate for all of us to escape. Jeremiah, Martin, Ezekiel, Carter, and I entered on vehicle. Our british troops entered another and our American allies entered the other.

Then off we went. The trucks drove and raced away from the prison as bullets were dinging on the metal before we were away from the prison for good. Once we drove past the gate, freedom was ours. However, this was not a time to say eureka yet. We may have been granted an admirable freedom, but not a desirable victory.

As the five of us sit in the passenger trailer of the truck, I ask the driver for water. He lends me over a cantine of water and I take a sip out of it. I offer Jeremiah sip for his hydration.

"Here, Jeremiah," I say. "Drink."

"I think I'm okay," he responds. "I'm better than okay actually."

"Here, you're dehydrated. Go on, drink."

"Thank you."

Jeremiah excepts the offer and takes a drink out of the cantine. It had been weeks since Jeremiah and I's capture and weeks since we'd seen the sunrise again on this island of Meridian Prime. It was time for us together to plan our next course of action. The question was how?

"So...what's next for Ezra Prescott?" Ezekiel asked.

"What's next is that we set course back to New Exodus and plan our next move to turn the tide of this war. My question is what's next for us Jeremiah Blackwell, eh?"

"Oh, blimey, what is next?" Jeremiah asked himself taking sip of water and clearing his throat. "I'm gonna take a bath, going to sleep in a real bed, maybe find a nice warm body to sleep next to me. Then we find this bloody ark and end this bloody war before the germans do once and for all. There goes a start."

"Indeed it is."

"So how much longer is it going take for us to find the ark?" Martin asked. "We've been scouting every last inch of this island off the colony of New Exodus for weeks. Not to mention spending more week tracking you and Jeremiah down."

"When we return to the colony, I will resume my research and finish what we started. Then we gather the Heard of Whales together at the round table for a meeting once I've completed research from this expedition. Until then, we resume our conquest and finish this war that shall end all wars. That is how much longer it will take."

"With all due respect, Professor," said Ezekiel. "It is not as if Arthur left a map with a big red X that marks the spot. We've lost good people on this exepidtion already and their lives must mean something towards the climax of this journey."

"If I didn't know that, Ezekiel," I said. "This conquest would be futile. A wise king once said that without sacrifice, there can be no victory. No sacrifice, means no victory. Now, let us resume what we shall finish and never let us pause what we can't. May the herd guide us all."

We all say our code in great unison.

"May the herd guide us all."

Max

July 4th, 2017

8:07 AM

Portland, Oregon

Jarvis Arts Center

 **Present day...**

"And that's the story," said Alex. "From what dad could tell me anyways. And here I am. Telling this story to you."

"Well, that's an outstanding story coming from the Prescotts and Blackwells," I said. "This is bad."

"No, we just pick up the trail where we left off and-"

"Wait, trail? Alex, there's no trail. After Fernando, Kristen, and I were arrested and Johanna dropped the charged, we were still being punished for bribing her. She ended up suspending us for the rest of the semester. Even almost decided to expell us from Cleveland instead for what we did until she made up her mind to reinstate us for the next semester. Also got grounded for six months. After that, we all tried to finish what you still with some help from Uncle Bryan, but he was just too pissed off about us getting you killed in that sewer. When I finished junior year, that's when my parents thought it would be best to send me away to Arcadia Bay an start attending Blackwell for my senior year. So wouldn't being any trouble for them in Seattle. And I'm glad I was. Otherwise, Chloe would've died in that restroom. Gaurentee."

"Not really surprised."

"What does that mean?"

"Well I just, you know, happened to do a little digging of my own. And uh, I bet Johanna doensn't have this."

Alex pulled out a folded piece of paper from her jacket pocket and handed it to me. It was a printed image of the Eon Codex replica sold on Ebay. One that Alex appeared to have purchased herself.

"It's really amazing what you can find on the internet these days," she said.

"It's just another replica of the Eon Codex," I said.

"Oh is it? Because the one we found was stolen in a museum, remember?"

I look at it again to realize it was more than just a replica

"Holy crap, it's still intact. Arthur made more than one codex."

"So whatever's missing from the one at the Burke Museum..."

"...is probably still inside this one."

"Yeah, except that it's not."

"What do you mean it's not?"

"I mean what was inside Arthur's second codex is missing. What's missing in this one is with the Herd of Whales. But they don't know that. Because my dad hid somewhere secret to a place the heard hides out. In three days, your Uncle Bryan is setting up an exchange with the heard in three days in Vancouver."

"Vancouver?"

"Mm-hmm."

"And how do you plan on exchanging this thing with this secret shadow cult of yours?"

"Well, you don't necessarily need an invitation per se."

"Not just me, cousin. You too."

Alex raised her eyebrows. I raised mine too. But not in relief. Rather in shock. This was it. This is where I was actually getting dragged down into this again. No. Not again. Not now. Not this time. Never.

"Oh no," I said. "No man. Listen, I can't. I'm out."

"What?" Alex frowned.

"No, I just don't do that kind of thing anymore. Besides, there are plenty of other guys that are much more equipped to handle this kind of thing."

"Like who?"

"Um, I don't know, like uh..."

"Jesus."

I take out my smartphone to view my contacts. Looking up possible people I know who might be able to handle Alex's situation. I know Rachel has been living the norm with Frank as Chloe and I have, but she always said she could be available for some of her vigilantism left in her. David may be in the Chrysalis Corps, but Alex's problem was tethered to the war he had been fighting in and it could aide the Chrysalis army in the war against the CDF.

Those were the only two possible contacts who I knew may be available for Alex. Though she didn't look like she was up for anything with no one she knew, I knew they could help.

"Anybody - Rachel Amber," I said.

"No," said Alex.

"Or David Madsen. No really, they're my go-to guy's for this sort of thing."

"No, no, no, absolutely not. I don't trust Rachel or David or anybody else you got on that phone with my life, okay? I need you on this one."

"Oh man. Alex, there's gotta be another way. I have a life now with Chloe. And I promised her I would never try anything like this again in a lifetime. Especially with my powers that I've also vowed to her not to use for this thing either."

"Not with the time I've got left. And certainly not with Johanna. Bryan will be waiting and so will Fernando and Kristen who've I managed to get in touch with over the years as well. I swear, not once will you have to time travel even if you have to use a bit of your powers. I got you plane ticket to Vancouver. The next flight is in eight hours. Don't waste it."

Even after three years of abandoning this strange underworld and vowing an oath to Chloe never to reenter the dangers of that world, this is what I get for keeping this family secret from her. What will she say now? How will she react to this? I'm certainly not bringing her into this either. Absolutely not. Even if she hadn't been dying on me in merely four years since Arcadia Bay, I astoundingly do not want another reason for her too. Not after 'that' week back togther. Not after the end of time attack.

I sigh. Alex has another smoke from another cigarette. I stand there behind her with my face going pale. Maybe Chloe doesn't need to know. At least not yet. I could just tell her I'm on my way to Vancouver right now to take the job Professor Jarvis has been offering me over the months. Or I could just accept the truth and spit out this secret in front of her face and not lie to it. You'll never forgive yourself if you don't, Caulfield. Not anymore.

Since Rachel was in Vancouver, maybe she could help us over there if Frank is somehow okay with it too which I know he won't. Perfecto, now I want to drag Rachel into this too. Unless I want to bring David up instead which I know I can't since he's back in the army again. Jokes on me. Even though this wasn't a joke to be laughed at.

Max, it's time to be your everyday hero again. Time to change time.

 **X/SQUARE/LM - TELL CHLOE THE TRUTH**

 **B/CIRCLE/RM - HIDE CHLOE THE TRUTH**

Well, this is it. I've made my decision that I know I'll regret but one I'll have to take. I dial Chloe and feed her lies on the phone.

 _"Hello,"_ said Chloe.

"Hey, babe, it's me," I say on the phone.

 _"Hey."_

"Yeah, listen, you're not gonna believe this. Jarvis just walked in here with the permits."

 _"Oh, that's great."_

"Yeah, I know, I know. But uh...looks like I'm going to take that Vancouver job after all."

 **Note: So for those wondering about the flashback in this chapter, it is Alex telling the story of Professor Ezra Prescott from one hundred back who once tempted to turn the tide of an eternity war that enter the first world war between America, Britain, and Germany. And yes, Ezra is the ancestor to the Prescotts from Arcadia Bay in my fiction and is mentioned in episode three of After the Storm.**

 **I've also used Jeremiah and Ezekiel Blackwell as well as Martin Prescott who are finding fathers to something in Arcadia and went on Ezra's expedition to the ark of genesis. Jeremiah for instance being the founder of Blackwell in 1910 seven year before the conquest.**

 **There are only two more chapters left to complete. So sit tight and stay tuned for the last two chapter concluding this episode and stay golden!**


	11. Independence Day

Chapter 11 Independence Day

 **Accessing Chrysalis Records...**

 **Chrysalis British Division**

 **Mission Log: Operation Olympus**

 **Location: Mount Olympus, Greece**

 **Objectives: Recon CDF activity. Retrieve enemy intel for potential NS threats.**

 **Squad Call Sign: SCAR 1**

 **Operative 1: Capt. Daniel "Wolff" Lyall**

 **Operative 2: Lt. Leonard Snipes**

 **Operative 3: Corp. Donald Lee**

 **Status: Failed**

 **Helmet Cam: Lyall, D. "Wolff" (07/03/17) 2:38 PM**

Captain Lyall laid down on the cold grass unconscious with the rest of his two men Lieutenant Snipes and Corporal Lee. He slowly struggled to get up from the injuries he had taken from the mine blast as his were ringing from the explosion. He could see Snipes and Lee succumbing from the blast as well and tried reaching for the two of them crawling on the ground.

Once Lyall's hearing was clear again, Snipes gradually got of his back, but not on his feet as he attempted to reach for Lee.

"Lee...", murmured Snipes.

As Lee was up, Snipes noticed Lyall was up as well.

"Lyall, he ain't dead," said Snipes. "I'm coming to ya."

As everyone caught their breath and Snipes got up to reach Lyall, two enemy soldiers who belonged to ConDef rushed in to knock down the two soldiers down with their feet in front of Lyall to immobilize them to the ground. One ConDef soldier beat Snipes crushing his face apart with the stock of his rifle while the other flipped Lee's body over to inspect him. As soon as Snipes was beaten to death and Lee was captured, to sound of a magnum's bullet rang signaling the enemies to cease action.

Lyall turned to his left to see a man with gray hair and tactical ware with two other soldiers walking between him. The man was General Elias Alkaline himself. Leader of the Continuum Defense Front. Holding a python above him when pulling the trigger for a warning shot. He approached Lyall disemboweled from the mine explosion with his two men between him.

"Get him up," ordered Alkaline. "He's wounded."

Alkaline's men took Lyall by the arms to get him up on his knees. Then the injured Captain himself stared wearily at the enemy general eye to eye and face to face.

"Save your breath, trooper," said Alkaline.

A ConDef trooper walked to Alkaline to inform him of what they knew about Lyall and his men.

"General Alkaline, we found them after the blast," said the CDF soldier. "We believe they were on recon scouting for our forces. We've also prepared for the attack by order of the herd. Initiating Operation Ares."

"How many did you come with?" Alkaline asked Lyall.

Lyall coughed a little before answering to catch his breath again.

"We're it," said Lyall.

"What about the helicopter we shot down?"

"My men need medical."

"Do you care about your men?"

Before Lyall could answer, Alkaline stepped back to at first aim his gun at the face damaged Snipes until he shifted his aim at the soldier that beat the Lyall's lieutenant. Then pulled the trigger. Shooting his own soldier in the chest and dropped dead on the ground.

"Care clouds judgment," said Alkaline.

The general stepped forward to hold the captain by the chin and to look at each other in the eye again.

"That is why you cannot win," continued Alkaline. "This place...isn't yours anymore."

To finish the job, Alkaline sadistically shoot Lyall in the spleen and the captain halers in anguish. Then leave the three Chrysalis troops to Alkaline's troops.

"Kill them," ordered Alkaline. "Save the bullets."

The ConDef soldiers finish Snipes and Lee by crushing their skulls with their boots. A CDF soldier with long hair and tactical shades hit Lyall in the face with his stock knocking his head to the ground. The last thing Lyall could see before his dying breath is an enemy soldier forking a CDF flag in the grass before his misery was put out. Then Lyall's assailant viciously threw a dozen punches at his face breaking his helmet cam corrupting the footage and eventually killing the fallen captain.

 **END OF TRANSMISSION**

David

July 4th, 2017

8:38 AM

Seattle, Washington

Chrysalis HQ

"What is Ares?" I ask as the footage ends. "And who's the herd?"

"Unclear," said Penske. "Helmet cam stopped transmitting. It's been eighteen hours. No contact. ConDef's made no demands."

I speak with Admiral Penske in his office in the Chrysalis Seattle headquarters. I had been sent here by his orders as soon as Chrysalis command had received Captain Lyall's last transmission. Penske turned off the screen and turned his eyes to me.

"Continuum Defense Front doesn't make demands," I said. "They planted flag on our grass. They executed three men and their pilot was shot down."

"Our team was sent to secure enemy territory to retrieve enemy intel on a potential threat to national security."

"That territory's a black sight, Admiral. Why the hell is ConDef allowed in that turf?"

"My permission of the accords. All nations have access to-"

"Sir, that objective required a full strike force. Not a four-man team."

"Commander Madsen, I implore you to use diplomacy in this office. Your not in Blackwell security or the ABPD anymore. Neither are you in the US marines. Take a different tact."

"Yes, sir. Who else knows about this?"

The admiral walk up to his desk to open the blinds for bright sight and a glamorous view of Seattle and the forth of July parade. Our conversation continues.

"Right now," continued Penske. "Joint Strategic Air Command and you."

"This is a deliberate act of aggression, Admiral," I said. "We should be down their on patrol. Not out there throwing confetti."

"The rules of engagement prohibit definitive action under these circumstances."

"We stand by with our barrels in the sand and watch our fleet leak parade?"

"Commander Madsen, make no mistake. My instincts which are aligned indelibly with your own are that we need to engage."

"Why don't we sir?"

The admiral sighs as he touches my should and walk away from the window overlooking the parade. He allows me to take a seat at this desk as he sits down himself.

"They're politicians, Madsen," he says. "They wipe hell's ass with whatever flags keeps the smoke stacks burning. To these men, the idea of mounting a defensive trigger requires a fresh planned piss. Until there's war. The warrior's always in charge."

"But sir, by the time there's war, it's already too late. Hesitation is a hole in the head. You drill that in what's relentlessly in flight school, you work the problem and respond."

"You're always a fast learner, Commander. Strat Com is well aware of our grievances. At this time, no use of force is being considered at operational level. These are losses of war, son."

"Thank you for the briefing, sir."

 _"Admiral Penske,"_ said a voice on the intercom. _"Madsen's Seahawk is waiting on the roof. He also has visitors here waiting for him."_

"Thank you, ma'am," said Penske. "He'll be there shortly. Enjoy the parade, Commander. Dismissed."

I walk out of the Admiral's office to see Kristine Prescott in the hall waiting for me as my debriefing ended.

"How many?" Kristine asked.

"Four," I answer. "KIA."

"British division?"

"Front was already there. They got the whole team. Looted the sight."

Kris shook her head walked with me across the hall on the top floor of the building.

"Son of a bitch," said Kris. "This fleet stuff is nonsense. We should be up in our Seahawks flying watch."

"Admiral doesn't disagree."

"Captain Harvest?"

"Negative. Today the Oregon isn't a warship. It's parade float. Sailing from Elliot Bay to the Pacific Ocean."

"A whole fleet here in Seattle? Doesn't seem right."

"We do this every year, Kris."

"Well, let's not miss the party."

"After you, Prescott."

"Thanks, Madsen. Come on, let's take the scenic route."

The two of us walk through the door to the receptionist room where Cayce stands by the secretary's desk waiting for us. The secretary herself sits at her desk talking to Cayce as he sees walk inside.

"So what happened?" Cayce asked.

"Entire British unit KIA," I answer. "Four including three troops and a pilot. ConDef got there first."

"Well that's just fucking typical. The shit just hits the fan harder and harder each day. All the more reason Atlas Depot was attacked just a few days ago."

"We'll hit him harder, Cayce," I said. "As soon as we're done celebrating. Even though we shouldn't be celebrating just yet."

"When we should be out there on patrol duty instead," said Kris.

"That or we could be grilling hot dogs and burgers to celebrate," said a voice entering the room.

It was Captain Cage dressed in his navy coat and cap. Approaching the three of us on the conversation.

"You done with Penske yet, Madsen?" Cage asked. "I don't see you in his office."

"Then that'll be a question you know the answer to, Cage," I said. "I'd be more happier if that British unit didn't get themselves outflanked by Alkaline and his men."

"We can mourn that unit in the obituaries later, David. Let's move out to the Seahawk. The parade's already begun and I think your wife and friends are waiting down in memorial."

The four of us walk to the memorial hall where I see my wife Joyce and the Caulfields, Vanessa and Ryan. Standing in front of an obituary wall with the names of the fallen heroes of Chrysalis written in stone. I walk up to my wife and see her dressed for the day and her smile.

"David, there you are," said Joyce proudly. "Good to see you!"

"Hey there, Joyce," I said hugging her. "Glad you could make it. How's Chloe?"

"She's doing well. She called and said she was watching the parade on television right now. She'll be seeing us fly on that Seahawk real soon."

"Well David, you look like your ready to fight in the field again," said Ryan.

"Sure am," I said. "How's Max?"

"She's alright. Better than alright actually."

"Our daughter just called and said she's finally taking on the Vancouver job," said Vanessa.

"Is that so?" I ask. "Isn't she still in college?"

"She is. But in the meanwhile, she's been looking for a job involving photography and she's finally taking one. She'll be graduating next summer."

"Is she also taking care of my step-daughter?"

"Oh yeah. They're getting along well. We've been staring at this list of dead people while waiting for you people."

"Certainly not a list you want to make," said Kristine.

"Piece to the fallen," I said.

"I don't believe we've met your friends, David," said Ryan.

"Right, where are my manners?" I ask myself. "Ryan, Vanessa, these are my compatriots Cayce and Kristine. And this is my commanding officer, Cage. Captain Cage. You can call him Clayton if you like. Or Captain in his respects."

"They can call me whatever they wish, David," said Cage. "Any friend of my second in command is a friend of mine. I say, aren't you two the parents of Max Caulfield. The Max from Arcadia Bay."

"You know it," said Ryan.

"Last I was in Arcadia, I was on a stand in your daughter's trial."

"And last you in Arcadia, you shot up my daughter's school. No offense."

"So your the parents of the infamous Max Caulfield," said Cayce. "I believe I once saw her back in Portland during the Triple 4 attack. She's brave fighter."

"Well we didn't raise our daughter to be soldier," said Vanessa. "We raised her to be the person she dreamed to be and what she's about to be in the coming year."

"Alright, enough chit chat," said Cage. "Let's get this show on the road ladies and gents. The Seahawk's waiting."

"Be sure to take things slow with my husband, Captain," said Joyce.

"Don't worry, I'll hold his hand," said Cage.

We all have a chuckle at the joke the Captain made and walk up to the elevator that takes us to the helipad where the chopper awaits us.

"So Captain," said Cayce. "When are you gonna tell me how you made it back home in one piece?"

"Sorry, Foley," said Cage. "It's classified."

"Huh, my ass. You can forget about those hot dogs and burgers you suggested making for us then."

"Well you're particularly in a fine mood. Maybe Admiral Penske should've relieved you from duty."

Every one of us gather around in the elevator and take it up to the helipad. Up on the elevator, we get a bird's eye view of the great city of Seattle through the windows. Seeing the sun up, the confetti raining, and the Space Needle towering over every building sharper the Lady Liberty. Pinching the sky for the Fourth of July.

"Seattle," said Cage whistling. "Haven't seen her in years."

"I always admired the view of the Space Needle," said Joyce. "Even wanted to move here one day with Bill before he passed. At least I get to move here with David now."

"I went up there once with Max," said Ryan. "We took a picture together. I'll never forget that moment between her and I."

"When I shipped out for basics," said Cage. "The naval defense grid was all theory and politics. Looking at it now, the Oregon is one of the three hundred best ships in the Chrysalis fleet. One that'll be sailing the Pacific today."

"Ships have been arriving all morning," said Cayce. "Nobody's saying much, but I think something big is about to happen."

As soon as the elevator life stop and reaching the helipad, we all walk out together in an entourage of veterans, family members, and friends. Other Chrysalis veterans are gathered around the balcony outdoors on the top of the Seattle Chrysalis tower cheering, chanting, and celebrating. The sky was crowded with flying air vehicles with propellers, fireworks shooting into the air igniting the clouds into colorful rhapsody, and confetti being dropped from skyscrapers. Happy Independence Day, Seattle.

"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to fleet week," said Kristine.

The celebration goes as far as jet fighters zoom through the air above us leaving marks of contrails in the morning blue. We could hear people chanting from a thousand feet below who are watching the parade patrolling the streets as they wave around American mini flags in their hands up in the air. Band players playing American anthems on their drums and trumpets. Floats strolling down the roads in a long traffic. Everything you'd see typically at a parade we got a slight view from where we walked across the line of vets standing by the railings. A mesmerizing day in Seattle for the forth.

I hold my wife's hand walking across the crowd of veterans. Ryan and Vanessa hold hands as well. Walking through the crowd overlooking the citywide celebration from the railing with American banners flagged next to us. Then we saw the USCC Oregon sailing across Elliot Bay and other ships in the convoy shoot fire works out of their missile launchers. The alluring view of the ships oughta steal the show for everyone.

"There she is," said Kris. "The Oregon. Home sweet home."

"Would've been down here in days, Kris," I said.

"I prefer the Macy's Thanksgiving parade," she said.

"You and me both."

"Did Penske ever mention anything about the new kid in our team?" Cayce asked Kris.

"Negative," she replied. "If he did, he never brought it up to me. Though Penske has had a lot of young blood enlisting into Chrysalis up those four-star sleeves."

"He's flying to the ceremony with us," I said. "Make sure you don't call him that."

"Never, to his face," she admitted.

When we get to the security gate, there are cameramen holding cameras and journalist holding microphones in hand. Fitting the press would be here to report us taking flight on a Seahawk. And Cage promised they wouldn't be here.

"You told me there wouldn't be any cameras," I tell him.

"And you told me you were gonna wear something nice," said Cage. "Folks need heroes, Madsen. To give them hope. So smile, would ya? While we still got something to smile about."

Cage removes his cap wiping the sweat off his bald spot. I smile to Joyce as she returns one to me. To have something to smile about as well as someone to smile to. Taking the captain's advice.

"Make a hold," said Kris approaching the gate before the rest of us.

"Right this way, ma'am," said a guard letting her through.

The people already lined up clear the way for us VIPs to get through. Since Joyce, Vanessa, and Ryan were visitors, they needed their belongings to be removed before walking through the scanner. My unit and I were free to walk through even with arms being carried in our holsters. Once everyone is past security, we ready to hit the helipad.

"Service has it's perks," said Kris. "We've got a plane to catch."

A line of veterans in coats and caps stand between all of us applauding as they prepared for our arrival. An announcer on the intercoms had spoken to welcome everyone about our approach. And there she was. Our shiny new Seahawk parked on the helipad waiting for it's passengers to board.

"Rounds eating this thing up," I said.

"Public relations, David," said Kris.

"It's propaganda, Kris," I said. "We lost four men and we're going to a party."

"Our hand are tied," she said. "Take a little R&R today, Commander. That's an order."

"You can't give me an order. I have the higher rank."

"You got me there, Commander."

The hatch on the tail end of the Seahawk opens revealing Sergeant Newblood welcoming us aboard.

"Ahoy, Commander Madsen," he says.

"Sergeant Newblood," I say. "Fancy seeing you here."

"Right back at ya. And if it isn't Lieutenant Prescott, Corporal Foley, and Captain Cage on deck. Where's Admiral Penske?"

"He's coming here solo, Newblood," said Cage. "He'll be here when he'll be here."

"And who are your mates?" Newblood asked.

"This is my wife Joyce and that's Vanessa and Ryan," I say introducing them.

"Welcome aboard, Joyce, Vanessa, and Ryan," said Newblood. "Today's your lucky day flying here with us. I'm Sergeant Newblood at your service."

"Well aren't you a gentleman, Serge," said Joyce. "And I thought Chrysalis weren't so kind back in Arcadia Bay."

"Arcadia Bay's another story, love. After you sir and ma'am. Or should I call you Ryan and Vanessa?"

"You can call us that," said Vanessa. "Frankly, that's who we are."

"That's what she said," said Ryan.

Once we're all seated inside and buckled in, my team's pilot is revealed to be the one flying.

"About those drinks I owed you," said the she-pilot. "What shakin' babes? This is your pilot speaking."

"Amanda Lynch, ever the survivor," said Cayce. "How long were you supposed to be our pilot again? I think I got air sick on the last ride with you."

"Until the day you fire me, Foley," said Lynch. "I'll be flying this bird till the end of time."

"Let's not get her airborne just yet, Lynch," said Cage. "We still have one more passenger to be accounted for. You know who."

"So where's Mason, Logos, and Heard?" I ask Newblood.

"They're off flying in another bird," he replied. "They'll be flying beside us if I'm right."

"Can she still fly, Lynch?" A voice asked. "The admiral is on deck."

It was Admiral Penske. Finally boarding the Seahawk and the last passenger to account for boarding.

"Thank you for joining us, Admiral," said Lynch. "Your flight's been delayed. Only since we've been waiting on your, sir."

"Well, now that we're all acquainted," he said. "Let's get up and away."

"Roger that, Admiral. Just take a seat we'll be up in the air momentarily."

The admiral takes his seat and buckles up for the ride with all passengers acquainted. The hatch closes as Lynch fires up the propellers.

"Attention all passengers," said Lynch. "This is your pilot speaking. Please remain seated and strapped in at all times. Since we have locals on board, there is no airline service on this bird. If any of you get air sick, I've got a bucket on the co-pilot seat next to me. With that said, just sit tight and buckle up, buttercups. Enjoy the flight."

Then we're off the helipad and airborne. Taking flight with the other Seahawks patrolling above the city. While there's still a parade going on down on the city floor. We were all supposed to land on the runway of the Oregon where the Independence Day ceremony would be taking place when the aircraft carrier was docked on Elliot Bay.

"Chrysalis Flight Control, this is Lynx Niner," said Lynx on comms. "I am airborne with Valor One and Admiral Penkse. On route to USCC Oregon. Over."

 _"Copy that, Lynx Niner,"_ said Flight Control. _"We will escort you to Oregon. Over."_

Lynx Niner to Oregon. Valor One and Admiral Penske is on board. We're coming to ya."

 _"Copy Lynx. Oregon is awaiting your arrival."_

Chrysalis birds weren't the only thing airborne. There were also airships in the air with electronic billboards displayed. Ones with Independence Day ads such as Uncle Sam signs that say: **I WANT YOU TO SUPPORT CHRYSALIS: THERE AND BACK AGAIN**. Even electronic billboards on buildings in the streets below displaying Fourth of July ads as well.

"You kept the most infamous team in Chrysalis well under the radar, Admiral," I said.

"Captain Harvest will thank you for your service, Commander," said Penske. "You'll be rewarded a medal of honor at the ceremony today."

"You know I get stage fright, right Admiral?" Cayce asked.

"I didn't know you get stage fright, Cayce," said Kris.

"I was a Blackwell kid once and when I tried out for drama, I thought I was gonna on stage. Or At least during rehearsal. And I actually did."

"Holy shit, are you serious?" Kris asked.

"No, ma'am. Not at all."

"Ha, he got you, Prescott," chuckled Newblood.

"Did not," said Kris.

"They'll be no puking during the ceremony, Corporal," said Cage. "You're not in drama class anymore. You're in the corps."

"Am I not in Kansas anymore either, Captain? I've got relatives there you know."

"Keep telling yourself that and you'll end up back there."

"At least I'll be watching David down there on the podium in front of the Oregon making his wife blush," said Joyce.

"Really, David?" Vanessa asked. "You're going up on that mic on the podium?"

"Yes I am," I said. "I made sure to bring the note cards."

"I made sure to bring the popcorn," said Ryan as he chuckled.

We were now flying over the AATIS guns stationed on Elliot Bay. Nearing the Oregon and our destination to the ceremony. People were crowded and gathered around the pier of the bay applauding and chanting for our arrival. Awaiting our participation on the podium.

"AATIS guns are working overtime today, huh Admiral?" I ask.

"Not a lot of traffic," said Penske. "Always vigilant."

"You familiar with the air intercepts systems, Cayce?" Kris asked.

"Chrysalis's iron shield," said Cayce. "Major firepower."

"Oregon, this is Lynx Niner," said Lynch. "We're on final approach."

 _"Copy Niner. Oregon is waiting for arrvial."_

Suddenly, a bleeping noise was heard from the cockpit. Our bird was detecting some kind of lock-on warning.

"Admiral, sir," said Lynch.

"What is it, Lynch?" Penske asked.

"The ATTIS guns appear to be tracking us. They've got a - Oh shit! Everyone brace for impact! Incoming!"

The ATTIS gun fires in our direction and it's missile hits the ruder of our Seahawk spinning us out of control. Good thing we have restraints on. We hang on tight as we can as the alarm goes off having taken a hit. Everyone on board panics. Especially my wife and the Caulfields I had brought into this crash landing. Joyce's face is lit with fear.

"David, we're crashing!" She screams.

"What the hell happened?!" Ryan yelled.

"Commander, Lynch is knocked out!" Kris yelled. "We got to take the cockpit now!"

"Joyce, stay here!" I yell. "I'm getting the cockpit! Everyone hang onto something!"

I unbuckle myself and rush to the cockpit with Kris. I remove our unconscious pilot from her seat and Kristine take Lynch to the passenger seat for safety. I take the throttle and my Lieutenant takes the other. In the event of the crash landing, we could see the air once lit up with fireworks now lit up with lethal rockets. Shooting down everything airborne.

The AATIS missiles hit everything from choppers to airships. People on the ground erupt into a mass panic and start retreating and blaring away from the havoc. Who in the hell hacked into our AATIS system? And how would they have done it without anyone realizing? If I had to put my money down on the table, it would be none other then the Continuum Defense Front themselves.

"Pull up! Pull up!" Kris shouted.

"No good!" I respond. "I can't control her! We've got missiles inbound!"

Then comm chatter from HQ came on warning every unit of the ambush.

 _"All stations! Shots fired at Elliot Bay! Say again, shots fired!"_

We could see and airship shot down by the missiles lighting up like the Hindenburg and crashing down into the bay. It misses the Oregon, but plummets into the water narrowly like a beach ball causing massive waves of water to spread out into the pier. Allowing some panicking locals to nearly drown in the waves as they washed them out.

 _"This is not a drill! Divert and deploy all available assets immediately!"_

This had to be the work of ConDef. It just had to remembering what Alkaline's men said on the helmet cam footage when they spoke of an attack someplace. Which I could now confirm to be here.

The bird was about to crash down into Magnolia Plaza. Through a glass roof of a shopping center of some sort. And though this would not be the uttermost happiest landing, I prayed we would all survive this. My wife and the Caulfields especially and personally.

"Brace for impact!" I warn everybody.

"Hold on!" Kris shouts.

And that's when we crash through the glass touching down into the shopping building. Praying for our lives that have hung onto dear life in a near fatal event of a crashing bird that lost it's wings. And then my world goes black.


	12. No Victory

Chapter 12 No Victory

David

July 4th, 2017

9:08 AM

Seattle, Washington

Magnolia Plaza

As I moan and moderately regain consciousness, I wake up to Kristine's cute but bruised face inside the cockpit. My face had been cut and bruised from the shrapnel and rubble as well when we had crashed. Kristine shakes me awake when my eyelids are peeled and my vision and hearing is cleared.

"Madsen!" She shouts. "David, wake up!"

"I'm alright," I moan. "Is everyone else alright?"

I turn behind me to see my team, the Caulfields, the admiral, and my wife in peril from our unhappy landing. Good thing everyone had safety straps on.

"Is everyone okay?!" I shout to everyone.

"No thanks to this unhappy landing!" Cayce shouts.

"Joyce, Ryan, Vanessa, you okay?!" I shout to them.

"I'm fine, David," my wife whaled. "How on earth did this happen?!"

"So much for ride of our lives," cried Vanessa. "How did we get ourselves into this?!"

"Ah, I think I busted my knee!" Ryan hollered.

"The admiral, is he okay?!" I ask.

"I'm fine, Commander," said Penkse. "Then again, not so fine actually. At least I'm not hurt."

"Madsen, Lynch is still out cold," said Newblood. "What do we do with her?"

"Captain, get my wife and everyone else to safety," I tell my commanding officer. "Foley, Prescott, and I will escort Penske out of here. You think we can handle that?"

"Since when do you give your captain the orders?" Cage asked.

"Right now since we crashed is when," I say. "Let's get to it."

"Commander, look!" Cayce warned pointing his finger.

I turn my head forward to see a CDF gunship hovering down through the shattered glass roof we crashed through. With it's propellers spinning and it's turrets ignited with bullets mowing down civilians panicking in the shopping building we crashed in. There's goes my answer to a pretty clear guess as to who started shooting with our AATIS guns.

Then suddenly, two ConDef soldiers clanged their climbing hooks to the front of our Seahawk to start boarding our downed bird.

"Here, take this!" Kris shouts tossing my a pistol in her cockpit seat.

When the enemy troops are in front of us with their rifles aimed down at us, I immediately start shooting at the trooper in front of me taking his head off. Then turn to Kris tugging against the other trooper with his rifle. I intercept the struggle with a bullet to his face. Then she takes the soldiers rifles and we get out of the cockpit to help everyone out of our downed bird.

Once everyone is out, it was not going to be easy. Newblood had to carry Lynch over his shoulder. Vanessa had to help her husband Ryan get out with his busted knee by carrying him around the arm. I had to help my wife Joyce out making sure she'd come out unharmed and comfort her.

"Admiral Penkse to all available ground units, please reply!" Penske ordered on comms.

 _"This is Major Heard! I read ya, Admiral! Loud and clear!"_

"We've just crash landed in Magnolia Plaza. What's your six?"

 _"It's a shit storm is what it is! I'm with Mason and Logos! We just crashed down in Queen Anne! Our pilots and three others are KIA! It's a full blown war zone out here and I think I can see the Space Needle on fire! How could no one in hell see all this coming!"_

"Can it, Major! I'm with Cage, Madsen, Foley, Prescott, and three civilians. Can you send evac? Over."

 _"Negative, Admiral! We've got our hands full as it is! But I think we can send our greenhorn Wheeler out somewhere for backup! Right now we're gonna find the sons of bitches who hacked our ATTIS system so we can take back the guns! Heard out!"_

"They're gonna send the kid out with backup?" Cayce asked. "We just instated him yesterday!"

"David, what's going to happen?" Joyce asked as I help her. "What do we do?"

"Just go with the captain and the other half of my team with Vanessa and Ryan," I tell her. "They'll get you to safety."

"David, you promised everything would be fine and look what's happening now! How do I know I'll be safe?"

"My team has handled this before and they won't let you down. Cage, you'll make sure my wife is safe, right?"

"I couldn't protect my wife, Madsen," said Cage. "But I'll be sure to protect yours."

I give Joyce a kiss on her lip to wish her good safety. I tell her I love her and she'll be seeing me again. Then she takes off with Cage, the Caulfields, and the other half of my team to be escorted to safety. Once we went our separate ways, praying for dear god I get to see my wife after this, I fought alongside with the other half of my team and the admiral through the shopping building.

Admiral Penske had to pick up rifle from the corpse of a ConDef merc on the floor. The rest of us got ourselves equipped with standard assault weapons as well. We all find some cover to evade enemy fire from incoming ConDef as the opposing force. We return fire as they do. Not to mention being cautious of civvies still scattered around running for their lives as some are get down from the bullets of an auto rifle. Not from ours.

"All civilians, clear the building!" Cayce shouts.

"Evacuate this area immediately!" Kristine shouts.

"Madsen to Heard, ConDef is using our ATTIS guns to shoot down our birds!" I warn the major on comms. "Get to ATTIS security to take back control of the guns!"

 _"Thanks for the memo, Commander Obvious! In the meantime, we're sitting ducks out here trying to reach for Private Wheeler for that evac you requested! Heard out!"_

"I hope Flint can take care of his ass out there," said Cayce. "I don't want the first day on the job on his epitaph!"

"Save it, Corporal," I order Cayce. "All that matters now is that we get Penske with my wife and friends to safety!"

"Noted!"

We shoot through more ConDef across the first floor and move up to the second when it's all clear. Then clear the second floor with our rifles and push forward up the stairs to the high ground in order to exit the building. I return to comm chatter to contact HQ. Perhaps we could get air support form our SCAR jet fighter units.

"We could use some air support, Commander," said Penske before I return to comms. "Try contacting HQ."

"HQ, this is Valor One," I say. "We need SCAR support. Do you read?"

Then there's nothing but static on my radio. Not only do we have no contact with HQ, but no contact with anybody. Meaning I won't be able to contact Cage to reassure myself of Joyce's safety. This was madness.

"Communications must've been hit," said Cayce. "Come on. Through here. This way."

The four of us run down a hall with civilian bodies left to rot against the floors and walls. Bleeding on the carpets and paint. Feels like Afghanistan all over again. On my soil.

When we run down the hall, I suddenly here a small voice wailing and sobbing from not far. I stop to investigate and following the saddening cry to an air duct with an open grate in the wall. Then I see a small boy crawling under it and hiding in it. And then he retreats from me when I spot him.

I walk to the air grate slowly where the weeping child is hidden. Crawling back away from me frightened that I would hurt him. I crouch to my knees to interact with the lone young as tears ran down his eyes.

"Hey," I say softly. "It's okay. I'm here. I won't hurt you."

"Everyone's dying," cried the boy.

The boy gasped when a tremor was felt from outside. I turn my head backward to check my rear. Then turn back to the small toddler. Still untrustworthy of me.

"Come here, I need to get you someplace safe," I said to the boy. "Take my hand."

I reach my hand out for the boy to offer him my protection, but he shakes his head and refuses it.

"You can't help me," said the child.

"David, get your ass out here now!" Cayce called out.

When I had turned my head to Cayce who called me back, I turned my head to where the small toddler had been hiding only for him to have vanished. Where had he gone? I didn't even ask where his parents had been. They likely would've been killed in a place like this. And now I could no longer help him if he had fled from me. It didn't matter now.

I run back to my team to see them caught in front of a dead end caused by debris that had fallen between the exit. Cayce and Kris helped Penske with some of the decayed rubble blocking the exit and it took the three of them to remove it. I even picked up my own fingers to help them with it as well. Making it four people to remove it all.

"Ah, this is a god damn mess!" Penske griped. "Every minute these terrorist are here, thousands of people die. I won't be responsible."

"It's hard enough fighting a war," I said. "But it's harder knowing no matter how hard you try, you can't save them all."

"Exactly."

"With respect, Admiral," said Cayce. "This is what happens when we toss around confetti over preventing a war on our own soil. The price we're paying for endangering lives by the thousands."

"My thoughts concisely," said Kris. "One this day of all days, why here? Why now?"

"It matters not, marines," said Penske. "As I've said, I rebuff the lives of thousands on my conscience. Let's move."

Once we're outside past the rubble and through the exit, we horrifying glance captures my eyes. Buildings on fire, civilians whaling for dear life, birds being shot out of the sky, parade floats destroyed on the streets, airships crashing down, CDF mercenaries running rampant, and the Space Needle in flames.

I thought I had seen it all in Afghanistan and back in Portland, this sight of Seattle being burnt to the ground on a national holiday was far from compared. Why would anyone like ConDef do this? Why here and why now as Kristine had asked herself that I now ask myself. If everyone's asking the same question, there's nothing independent that has become of this Independence Day today.

"CDF has turned this city into a war zone!" Cayce hollered.

"They're landing troops!" I shout.

"We need those AATIS guns back in our control!" Penske shouted. "That's all that matters!"

Before we make our next move pushing though the streets beside the pier, Kris lends some projectile weapons for me to use against the extremist.

"Here, I got some time grenades off our transport," she said.

"Good call," I said taking the grenade.

Time grenades, huh? The same ones Major Heard showed Cayce and I back at base. They definitely can prove useful in a debacle like this.

We run down the streets and I throw one time grenade at a squad of ConDef shooting civilians. The grenade lands in between them and goes off trapping them inside a chronon bubble slowing them down. I spray a good amount of bullets into their bubble that freeze frame in bullet time and once the time bubble wears down, the enemy squad all drops dead like bugs. Saving few of the civvies attacked by the squad.

"Nice throw!" Cayce shouts. "Those time grenades oughta even our odds!"

Guess they really did coming in after the first try.

The four of us keeping pushing forward into the streets checking our fire for incoming civilians running past us. When running down the street, another gunship chopper flies ahead of us and starts shooting down everyone in it's sight. Mostly locals.

We take cover behind the cars parked on the curbs of the sidewalks between the road to avoid fire and to wait for it to stop shooting. Then the attack chopper flies away and we pressed forward.

Enemy reinforcements were advancing towards us, but we kept fighting back. When we fight through more ConDef, we cut through a Starbucks corner in the street we advance through to avoid more heat. The longer ConDef had our AATIS guns under their control, the greater Seattle turns into a pile of dust and ash.

 _"HQ to all units, we've managed to reestablish communication control. We are extracting surviving locals in Lower Queen Anne at the Space Needle. Say again, Lower Queen Anne at the Space Needle."_

"How close are we to the space Needle?" I ask Kris.

"It's just down Elliot Avenue," she answered. "It takes time, but it's the only way down."

"Then that's our route," I said. "Admiral, we should make the Space Needle our top priority."

"Agreed," replied Penske. "Hopefully Captain Cage can take your wife and friends to the Space Needle safely as well. Where I need to be too."

 _"This is HQ. The ATTIS guns are still under enemy control. They are still shooting down our birds! We need someone to take them back from AATIS security station now!"_

 _"This is Major Heard! We're proceeding towards AATIS security now to take back control! Do you copy?!"_

 _"We copy Major. Get them back under control ASAP before every one of our birds are dead ones. HQ out."_

Once we cut through the Starbucks cafe, ConDef soldiers were still targeting civvies in the streets. Leaving them in peril. We even walk past some civilian bodies laid waste on the asphalt and a few civilians curled in corners wounded and sobbing. I feel awful for just leaving them behind. But like Penske had said, I won't let their lives be laid upon my conscience.

When we run across the pier on Elliot Avenue, another airship was shot down by another AATIS posted in the Elliot Bay. The blimp came descending down to the water as the AATIS missiles hit the balloon of the zeppelin setting it on fire and eventually plummeting into the bay. Cause waves to wash out into the land our boots stood on.

"Another airship is hit!" Cayce shouted. "Go right! Go right!"

The waves from the blimp crash was so massive and powerful, it washed away a big yacht off the water and into the asphalt. Blocking our path down Elliot Avenue and forcing us to take a shortcut on Mercer Street.

"Shit, the street is blocked!" Cayce bickered. "Now what's our heading?!"

"Over here," said Kris. "We can take a shortcut on Mercer. Down this street."

"Let's move, marines!" I order. "Incoming ConDef! Open fire!"

On the path down on Mercer, more ConDef was to be fought. Some of the enemy infantry had been posted by the window inside the buildings ahead. We check our flanks and open fire on the infantry above as well as below. Cayce even tossed a frag grenade through the windows to settle the flanking and it did with windows going boom. Sending the infantry out with one.

Upon proceeding across Mercer Street, we cut through a Microsoft electronic store and through a back alley only to reach a dead end. Either we turn back and continue down the road or climb over the concrete wall blocking our path.

"It's a dead end Valor," I said.

"I can help get us over that wall, sir," said Cayce. "This way, Commander. I got ya."

Cayce is the first person climb over the wall and squat on top to help me over. I take his hand and he helps me mantle over as well as Kristine and Penkse up and over as well. When we all get over the wall exiting the alley, things have only gone from bad to worse.

We get back on the streets only to see the road flooding with local running amok in a mass panic from another air blimp crash landing. The longer those AATIS guns are possessed by enemy control, the longer every airship thousands of feet above are vulnerable. Within fifteen minutes of this attack, it was already getting old. What happens next only gets worse.

Once we run through the panicking crowd, the airship impacts the surface erupting into a mass explosion crumbling buildings like rice crispy and causing a dust effect to erode into the street in front of us. The dust from the explosion was moving rapidly and would soon blind us to death and sweep us away in a matter of seconds.

"Holy shit!" Kristine shouted.

"Take cover!" Penske shouted.

"Everyone brace yourselves!" I shout.

We all brace for cover behind the cars to avoid getting smothered in the dust. And that's when the dust hits us and floods the street entirely.

Cayce

July 4th, 2017

9:24 AM

Seattle Washington

Mercer Street

I cough up the dust caught in my throat as my hearing goes vivid and my vision is blacker than night. My throat felt it was about to cough out a toad with dust in my saliva. Even when my eyes are wide open, I could barely an obstacle in plain view. Other than specks of dust illuminating through car lights that strobe from car alarms set off by the dust erosion and flash lights shining around.

I get off the asphalt covered in ash that felt like snow to find my team and the admiral. I can here voices of civvies crying and voices of soldiers quelling the distressed locals. One of those voices belonged to David and Kristine. We eventually find each other with the admiral via our flashlights lighting the fog.

"Cayce there you are," said David. "Come on. We got off the streets. This day just went from bad to worse."

When proceeding down the street, we can see civilians walking past us like zombies. Coughing up the dust in the wind and finding a way out of the fog. We use our flashlights on our rifles to light the foggy path to see the locals trudge across.

"Civilians, up ahead," I said.

"Hold your fire," said Penske.

I pick up once civilian curled against the corner of a car and help him up. I stand him up by the arm and blind him a little with my flashlight.

"Are you alright, sir?" I asked the civilian. "Get yourself to safety."

Most of these locals are all covered in dust in this fog. We almost covered in it too. Not that it mattered. What mattered was that these poor locals took shelter as soon as possible. I point my flash light to a women walking in front of me and I tell her what to do.

"Get off the street," I said. "Back indoors."

The lady walks by and I find some stairs that would take us back inside another alleyway. That would our route to the Space Needle.

"Left, up the stairs," I say. "Let's move."

We get up the stairs taking our left and hear more explosion from afar. I can imagine more negative action striking down Seattle between here and the Space Needle.

"You hearing that?" David asked.

"Something's incoming," said Kristine.

We can see something whoosh above us. It wasn't an AATIS missile. It wasn't another crashing bird or airship. It was something a little out of the norm. It was a fireball of some sort. One that we felt hit the ground like an asteroid or meteor with our own feet. Now this was just getting weird.

Then we here women screaming down the ally we walk into. As well as strange snarling and growling noises. The sound of the women getting eaten alive by flesh eating animals. Whatever it was, we would discover that real soon. When those animals come attacking us.

And then suddenly, another shooting star falls from above that's about to blow us off our feet. One that's about blow up in David's face.

"Heads up!" I warn David.

"Look out!" Kris shouts.

Then boom! The fireball explodes in front of us knocking David to the ground and unleashing strange zombie like beings that charge at us. We open fire on the demonic creatures as run at us. Now we know what that screaming was all about.

One of the creatures pounces onto David and pins him to the ground. David struggles and eventually breaks himself free from the demonic being by breaking it's arm and stabbing it in the neck. Then the demon burst into dust when it's killed.

I help David back on his feet after killing the other alien zombie demons. Somehow the creature themselves looking somewhat familiar. Reminded me of the ones from we once fought in Portland during Triple 4.

"What the hell were those things?" Kris asked. "What the fuck did we just fight?"

"David, they almost looked like those creatures we fought back in Portland three years ago," I said. "Do they ring a bell to you?"

"They're called Fallen," said Penske. "And yes, we did fight them during Triple 4. Those were the Revenant types we just shot down."

"And now we've got bigger fish to fry," said David. "Wherever the hell these...Fallen came from, they're now loose in Seattle. Come on, we still need to get to the Space Needle. Assuming Cage can get my wife and everyone else there in time. Move out."

When we continue forward through the alley, we can see more Fallen chowing on the corpse of the poor damsels that had been attacked. We shoot them down before they can even attack us. Then HQ comes back on our radio frequency.

 _"HQ to all ground teams. Be advised that we have report of Fallen presences in Seattle. I repeat, Fallen are present in Seattle. The same demon-esque hostiles seen in Portland."_

By now every Chrysalis unit still alive out there is probably aware of the infestation. When finally making our exit out of the alley, we can see the Space Needle much closer than before. The closer we got to our window, the farther it would become a door.

"Look, the Space Needle is dead ahead," said Kris.

"We're getting close," said Penske.

We're back on the streets and more fireballs shower above us. Manifesting for Fallen beast into our six. This attack was turning out to be from a natural terrorist attack to monster mash.

"More fireballs dropping in!" I warn.

"They're bombarding us!" Kris shouts.

When the Fallen coming charging in, David uses another one of his time grenades to slow a pack of them down wife firing more bullets from his rifle into their time bumble to set a chain reaction with the caught inside the stasis field. Then simultaneously imploding them into molten dust when the field wore out.

"Where in the hell are these monster coming from?" I ask after fight the pack. "Why is ConDef attacking us, Commander? Why here? Why now?"

"No idea," said David. "The only idea I have is that ConDef has been trying to take control for years, Cayce."

"They knew we'd let our guard down during this celebration, David," said Kris. "It can't be surprising they'd strike us here on this very day."

The four of us decide to cut through a Barnes & Nobles next door to another Starbucks. When cornering the back door to the small product building, we here more civilians and damsels in distress. As well as more ConDef taking hostages inside. We needed to be discreet.

"I here more civilians inside," said David. "Sounds like they're in trouble."

"Behind that door, David," said Kris. "Let's make this quick and clean."

I position myself next to the door against the wall as David gently opens the door. Seeing a ConDef merc point his gun at a civilian squirming on the floor for mercy. Then David give him the element of surprise by kicking the door open and shooting the merc dead in the head. So much for discreet.

We all charge inside and deal away with the other enemies taking hostages. When push through inside the bookstore and into the cafe avoiding the locals and hitting the rest of the mercenaries with our ammo, I throw another one of my frags into the area of the cashier table and blow some bad guys off their feet. Killing them instantly, brutally, and explosively. Call me a demolition specialist.

Then suddenly before exiting through the cafe, another fireball hits the surface outside releasing more Fallen Revenant. The Revenant come crashing through the window next to the exit and bust through the exit door to charge at us like the rest. And then we shoot them like the rest until we're clear to push forward outside. Finally, we push forward outside.

 _"All stations, marines are pinned down at the Seattle Center by the Space Needle! Ground teams cannot advance! We need immediate suppression!"_

"HQ, this is Admiral Penske. Solid copy."

 _"We read you, Admiral. Said traffic."_

"I need your Predators online to draw fire near the Seattle Center for ground force cover."

 _"Clear, sir. Inbound hot."_

 _"Cage to Madsen! Cage to Madsen! Come in Madsen!"_

"Cage, where the hell are you? Is my wife, okay?"

 _"For now. But we could really use some backup by the Seattle Center right now! We're getting hammered to the wall down here and we could really use air support!"_

"Stand by, Captain. HQ's bring the Predators online. You'll have your support in no time. Just tell Joyce and the other to hang in there. Madsen out."

The road to the Space Needle was blocked by a pile of bricks and timber from a tenement building on fire. The rest of Mercer Street was a bust. Luckily, Kristine found a small hole we could crawl through to take a path under the buildings for a shortcut. That would be our last route to take.

"Let's cut through here," she said.

David helps Kris lift up a stick of wood to help us enter into the tunnel. There were friendly soldiers of ours already inside and we warned them to cease fire.

"Don't shoot, we're friendlies," warned Kris.

"Friendlies, hold your fire!" A soldier warns his men guarding the hole.

"Commander Madsen, take control of those Predators for fire support," ordered Penske.

"Roger that, sir," said David.

The four of us crawled through the hole and into a basement where other Chrysalis operatives stayed hidden for safety. The was one soldier who laid himself on a table needing medical treatment. Though Kristine was a medic, the underground team already had one doing the medical treatment for the wounded.

"Oregon, this is Valor One," said David.

 _"This is Captain Harvester of Oregon. We read you Valor One."_

"Harvester, we need your Predator units airborne for air support near Seattle Center."

 _"Copy that, Valor. Standing by for tasking."_

"Penske to ground units near Seattle center. Predators are inbound for suppression. Once they engage, we're taking the Space Needle."

 _"Roger that, Admiral. Ground teams are in place."_

The four of us proceed into a wine cellar where our troops appear to be extracting wounded for medic support. We could see a light somewhere up ahead. Must be where the Seattle Center is.

 _"Major Heard to Chrysalis units in territory. We've secured the ATTIS security building and have taken back control of ATTIS guns. I repeat, we have taken back control of the ATTIS guns."_

"Well that's a relief," I said. "Finally, some good news afoot."

 _"Commander Madsen, this is Private Wheeler. Come in Commander. Over."_

"Wheeler, is that you?" David asked. "Where in hell's bells have you been?"

 _"I was just with Major Heard's team. She told me to split up and continue fighting as soon as they got to ATTIS security. But I'm standing by for now, sir. Or Commander - whatever."_

"So why aren't you out there fighting?!"

 _"I'm on a Seahawk, actually. I'll be picking you guys up at the Space Needle once it's all cleared. I'm still trying to learn how to reload also."_

"Better learn fast. Don't keep us waiting once we're there. Madsen out."

David

July 4th, 2017

9:39 AM

Seattle, Washington

Seattle Center

The four of us restock our ammunition from ammo crates stocked by the big whole at the end of the cellar. Which would be our light at the end of the tunnel to the Seattle Center near the Space Needle.

Once we're through the whole taking us to a small ditch, we see the Space Needle that only one click ahead us now. Surrounded by the Seattle Center, the McCaw Hall, the Key Arena, the Museum of Pop Culture, the Chihuly Garden and Glass, and the Pacific Science Center. All under fire from CDF oppression. Reducing Chrysalis comeback.

"HQ, go weapons free!" Penske ordered.

"Get to the Space Needle!" I order. "Go! Go! Go!"

As well hustle toward the courtyard of the Seattle Center, the Predator drones start raining down missiles on ConDef in our path life firecrackers. Blowing the enemy troopers off the grass like exterminated insects. Then we were clear to push forward and help the other ground teams defending the vicinity.

Suddenly, a chunk of a Seahawk bird comes tumbling down a flight of concrete steps in the courtyard like a volley ball and I dodge out the way to avoid it. Another chunk of a downed bird breaking the fall of the tumbling debris when I dodge it. Then run up the hill to help the other ground teams.

I get up there to see the other half of my team defending my wife and the Caulfield couple. Cage and Newblood fired back at the oppressive force as well as Lynch who had regained consciousness and was part of the fight as well. Joyce crouched down behind a wall next to Cage with her ear covered. Vanessa and Ryan had done the same as they were defended by Newblood and Lynch. Though Ryan had been in pain from the knee he had busted from the crash.

"Madsen, aren't you a sight for sore eyes!" Cage shouted. "Where the hell have you been?!"

"David, you're alive!" Joyce cried.

"Speak for yourself!" I shout. "How are Vanessa and Ryan?!"

"Why don't you ask them yourself!" Cage shouted.

"Vanessa, how's Ryan?!"

"He's not doing so good!" Vanessa cried. "He hurt his leg real bad! He needs a medic!"

"I'm fine, V," grunted Ryan. "Really..."

"No, not really! We need to get out of this mess now! Before we get ourselves killed!"

"There's still bloody ConDef in the way, love!" Newblood shouted. "And lots of them!"

"That is Vanessa to you, soldier! And don't call me love!"

"Madsen, you need to take control of the Predators on the double!" Penske shouts. "Take the controls on that computer!"

I take the laptop next to Cage to take control of the Predator drones above us and mark the targets surrounding the Space Needle. I scan for enemy targets the screen with the Predator cam linked overlooking the terror troopers below.

"Marking the targets now!" I shout. "Engaging Predator!"

I mark the first batch of targets at the Key Arena of the Seattle Center. The targets are locked and I fire away the missiles. Setting off a chain reaction of explosion eradicating the ConDef forces into ash and fire. Damaging the courtyard of the arena cacophonously.

Then I do some damage marking target near the Pop Culture Museum. Leveling the place with missiles jarringly. And then do even more damage flushing out ConDef posted at the Chihuly Garden with more missiles devastatingly. And finally, they were none.

Despite having leveled half perimeter surrounding the Space Needle, the wolves ate all the sheep in the pen for us to gain a clear approach to the evac point. And so every ground team including ours did just that.

"All ConDef forces have been eliminated, Commander," said Cayce. "We should down to the Space Needle with no problems now."

"Let's move out ground teams!" I order everyone. "Prepare yourselves for extraction!"

Once we all move it across the battle damaged courtyard, I tell my wife to get behind me for her own protection. Newblood helps Ryan up on his feet as the British man hulls him across the smoke in the grass.

"Ah, I'm not sure how much longer I can go on like this!" Ryan grunts.

"Just hang in there mate," said Newblood. "We'll get you to a medic soon."

"I'm a medic," said Kristine. "I can help him out if he needs me to."

"That won't be necessary, darling. You can help him up once exfil arrives."

"HQ, this Valor Two," said Cage. "We're with Valor One prepared to extract the Admiral and our team alongside some other men and three civilians. We're approaching the Space Needle and clear for choppers."

 _"Affirmative, Valor Two. Stand by. Seahawks are in route. HQ out."_

We now step foot in the courtyards of the Space Needle tower above us. Then we can hear propellers approaching from our six.

 _"Valor Team, this is Private Wheeler. Calvary's here ladies and gentlemen."_

We can see two of the Seahawks finally arriving as they drop down on the concrete and land. The hatch one our bird we're boarding reveals Private Wheeler inside welcoming us aboard to extract us.

"About time," said Cage.

"Let's go," I said.

"Welcome aboard, Commander," said Wheeler.

"Thanks, Private," I said. "Good timing."

I help Joyce and the Caulfields get aboard as Ryan finally has someplace to sit down and rest his knee. Then my team gets on board and Kristine is able to tend to Ryan's leg wound for medic treatment. Once everyone's accounted for, Penske somehow stays behind for some reason.

"Madsen," he said.

"Come on," I said.

More birds came dropping to pick up more troops. Penske remained on the ground.

"You go," he said. "I'm tending to another bird."

"Why?" I question.

"You saw those men out there. They're gonna need a leader before he leaves."

"We're this fight together, Penske."

"It's a fight we cannot win. Not without help. We need to alert the pentagon. Inform the president and defense committee of this incident. We can convince them to help us. The only way we can provide ourselves the strength in numbers against Continuum."

"What if they don't listen?"

"We'll make them listen. Now go. I'll be meeting you at the Oregon. That's an order."

"We will, Admiral. Godspeed."

"You too, Madsen."

 **Flaws - Daughter**

And then we're off. With everyone seated inside, I watch ourselves lift off the ground as Penske solutes us for good luck. I solute him back.

More choppers came rushing in to pick up more soldiers and civilians. I watch them land from thirty feet above as Chrysalis troops help the locals aboard. Then suddenly, I witness a small child coming aboard. The same child I had seen hiding in the ducts. How did he get all the way out here on his own? Maybe two of the civvies must be his parents bringing him aboard?

I stare down thirty feet below at the boy as we fly besides the Space Needle. The boy then looks at me back in the eye. Feeling alone and afraid. I still feel terrible for not helping him out of this. How could he have made it this far on his own at that age?

Then the boy runs aboard the chopper with the adults. Staring at me in the eye one last time as the hatch closes in front of him. And then suddenly, some even more scarring occurs.

Two ConDef soldiers with RPG's aim their rocket weapons down at the two-bladed choppers taking off from the ground and fire. Blowing up both choppers killing the troops and innocents on board. Including the small boy that looked no older then twelve.

My eyebrows are raised and my jaw drops in awe. I turn my head away from the shocking scene and shut my eyelids. Feeling the atrocity burn inside me. It was happening again. Why have I come back to the army? Everything I tried to leave behind with the help of my PTSD treatment I took for Joyce and Chloe was now possessing myself again. The soldier and civilian casualties had not been pleasant for me to witness in Afghanistan. It was even worse for me here in Seattle.

And finally, I turn myself away from the sight as the hatch on our bird closes behind. Sitting down next to my wife and partners for a safe flight back to the Oregon. With the eerie sight of a little boy dying in an exploded chopper getting under my skin, I'm now going to be haunted and scarred about it for life. Like all the bad deeds from Afghan before this. The ones that would aggravate my own wife and step-daughter and playing the patriot in the house. The burdens a soldier carries.

When fly away from the Space Needle. Departing the war torn city of Seattle and off to the aircraft freighter the Oregon to take refuge. Flying above smoke and fire flaring from building as well as the wonder of the six hundred foot needle shaped tower. The AATIS guns were now firing towards enemy birds defending the city from it's last legs. Leaving this terrorist attack by the Continuum Defense Front behind us. Make no mistake. This was the beginning of a new cold war with quantum terrorism that they alone have started.

And this was no victory.

* * *

In Vancouver, Rachel was sitting down on her bed next to Frank who had still been passed out from the night before. She had been watching the news on television. Witnessing the horrors of theConDef attack on Seattle. She could not change the channel with her remote after what she was seeing.

* * *

In Berkeley, Victoria Chase had been watching the news in her apartment building next door to Berkeley University. Witnessing the terror on TV as well.

* * *

On a bus from Denver, Colorado to Cambridge, Massachusetts, Warren Graham and Brooke Scott were on the road for a science trip to the MIT. Brooke had been passed out next to Warren on their bus seat as Warren watched the news about Seattle on hissmart phone. The news was no more pleasant to him than anyone else.

* * *

In Caldwell, Idaho, Kate Marsh was eating breakfast with her family in her new home in the state her and family moved to. Watching the news on the TV in the kitchen. The terror in Seattle prompted them to pray to the lord for the city to find peace after the storm released by the CDF.

* * *

In Seattle, General Alkaline of the Continuum Defense Front had been posted with a small band of his men at Discovery Park. Overlooking the attack with this two lieutenants Tie and Beluga. Alkaline received a text on his phone and picked it up to reply.

 **Joan: Is everything set? The attack is on television.**

 **Elias: Yes my lady. We have crippled Chrysalis's line of defense. In the name of the heard. In the name of Ares.**

 **Joan: Splendid. May the heard guide us all.**

 **Elias: May the heard guide us all.**

* * *

In Aurora Creek, Canada, Bryan Caulfield had been watching the attack on the news individually in his home. Acknowledging what the heard has made Continuum do. Hoping his daughter and niece would arrive in time to set things right.

* * *

In Portland, my step-daughter Chloe had been watching the television in her penthouse seeing the Independence Day parade in Seattle turn into a war zone by a ConDef catastrophe. Immensely worried about her mother and step-father getting hurt in the incident. Which we hadn't.

* * *

Max and her cousin Alex had been sitting down at the Portland airport waiting for their flight to Vancouver. Max turns her head towards the television screens above her to witness her once home away from home transform into a metamorphosis of ash and fire. The place she knew her parents had been and not only graciously worried about them getting harmed in the mass incident, but now coming to terms about the truth of Continuum Defense Front told by her recurring cousin. A truth she now wished hadn't been true, but could not deprive the inevitable.

* * *

In a dark secret lair, a woman in a dark suit sat down on a leather chair watching a television screen with the news about Seattle projected. Drinking a glass of liquor with a malicious smirk marked on her lip. Aware of the attack as she anticipated. In the name of ConDef. In the name of the heard. In the name of Ares.

* * *

On a hilltop that oversees the destruction of Seattle at Discovery Park, an figure had been over seeing it. Then turned away and walked back from the war torn city. A war the figure demanded. A war he corrupted upon Continuum and the heard. A war started by Ares. The god of war.

The Eternity War has now begun.

 **End of Episode 1!**

 **Note: If you've made it this far, you already know how this new season is about to turn out. Another attraction to steal the Uncharted and Call of Duty audiences in a Life is Strange story. Before you rant and rave about me milking my stories with action adventures, hear me out for one minute. I am aware that some of my readers prefer the mystery and drama that started Life is Strange over action adventure and that's okay. My stories are not just about over the top action, they are also about character development and charm. The things even action games can be capable of. UC and COD especially. And the thing that started the LIS series strong.**

 **My story will still stand with the action, but without having to sacrifice my new character driven dynamic between Max and Alex as well as David and Cayce. That's right readers. Eternity War will concentrate on two perspectives upon two character driven arcs. Max and Alex's side of the adventure will be about discovery the pathway to the Ark of Genesis that will turn the tide of the war between Chrysalis and ConDef. David and Cayce's side of the adventure will be about them fighting the war and holding the line of Chrysalis against the opposition of ConDef. So buckle up and prepare yourselves for my most breathtaking and heart pumping story yet! The Eternity War has already begun!**

 **I'd also like to note that this story will be on hold for some time so that I may resume my work on my prequel story the Lost Daughter that I started back in August. Then put that story on hold again in the middle of it's second episode. So that I may resume my work on the second installment to Eternity War sometime in December. Perhaps during my Christmas break when all my finals in college are done. In the meantime, stay tuned for the next exciting chapter of the Lost Daughter and Eternity War!**

 **Until next time, stay golden!**

 **Numbers - Daughter**

 **Life is Strange Eternity War**

 **Episode 1: Genesis**

 **Voice Cast**

 **Max Caulfield... ...Hannah Telle**

 **Alex Caulfield... ...Fryda Wolff**

 **Chloe Price... ...Ashly Burch**

 **Rachel Amber... ...Erin Yvette**

 **David Madsen... ...Don McManus**

 **Cayce Foley... ...Christopher Emerson**

 **Joyce Price... ...Cissy Jones**

 **Kristine Prescott... ...Laura Bailey**

 **Frank Bowers... ...Daniel Bonjour**

 **Fernando Rojas... ...Freddy Prinze, Jr.**

 **Kristen West... ...Kelley Crowder**

 **Ryan Caulfield... ...Adam Harrington**

 **Vanessa Caulfield... ...Misty Lee**

 **Bernard Jarvis... ...Stephen Merchant**

 **Clayton Cage... ...Chris Fries**

 **Jeb Mason... ...Charles Parnell**

 **Andrew Newblood... ...Nick Boulton**

 **Carlos Logos... ...Alex Hernandez**

 **Cheryl Heard... ...Cindy Robinson**

 **Amanda Lynch... ...Emily O'Brien**

 **Flint Wheeler... ...Jeff Schine**

 **Adam Harvester... ...Gideon Emery**

 **Elias Alkaline... ...Simon Templeman**

 **Gavin Penske... ...Ron Perlman**

 **Joanna Prescott... ...Jennifer Hale**

 **Ezra Prescott... ...Malcolm McDowell**

 **Jeremiah Blackwell... ...Brian George**

 **Martin Prescott... ...Stephen Merchant**

 **Ezekiel Blackwell... ...Neil Kaplan**

 **Arthur... ...Robin Atkin Downes**

 **Lancilot... ...Gideon Emery**

 **Percival... ...Stephen Merchant**

 **Gawain... ...Charles Parnell**

 **Tristain... ...Nick Boulton**

 **Merlin... ...Derek Phillips**

 **Ares... ...Neil Kaplan**

 **Written and Edited by**

 **WickDaLine**

 **Based on the Characters by**

 **Christian Divine**

 **Music by**

 **Henry Jackman**

 **Daughter**

 **Soundtrack**

 **Human - Rag'n'bone Man**

 **Time To Pretend - MGMT**

 **Glass - Daughter**

 **Till I Collapse - Eminem**

 **Departure - Daughter**

 **Dark Days - Local Natives**

 **To All of You - Syd Matters**

 **Crosses - Jose Gonzales**

 **Something Good - Alt-J**

 **Youth – Daughter**

 **Santa Monica Dream – Angus & Julia Stone**

 **I'm Only Joking - KONGOS**

 **Flaws - Daughter**

 **Numbers - Daughter**

 **Special Thanks to**

 **DONTNOD**

 **Deck Nine**

 **Square Enix**

 **Christian Divine**

 **Hannah Telle**

 **Ashly Burch**

 **Rhianna DeVries**

 **Kylie Brown**

 **Michel Koch**

 **Luc Baghadoust**

 **Zak Gariss**

 **Daughter**

 **tur1823**

 **Itzal37**

 **and you!**

 **Disclaimer**

 **I do not own anything. All rights go to DONTNOD, Deck Nine, and Square Enix. Thank you.**

Next time on Life is Strange: Eternity War...

Max and Alex walk down a side walk in their black suits to the bar where the exchange in underway. As a car passes driving over puddle and Alex smokes her cigarette and dropping it on the solid concrete as it burns.

"Fun really isn't something one considers from balancing the universe."

David and Cayce lock and load their rifles on their VTOL when the light is green and ready to drop down forty thousand feet to the attack on San Francisco. Prepared for battle.

"But this...does put a smile on my face."


End file.
